US grain futures are harder to pick than a broken nose these days.
The spring wheat futures market at MGEX did perform as expected but probably by about half the value one may have considered given such a sharp drop in the condition index in yesterday’s USDA crop progress report. NDWheat didn’t release their weekly crop US spring wheat crop report on Friday. This report can be useful to “double check” the USDA crop progress report out on Monday evenings.
In the SE Saskatchewan cash bids for both durum and spring wheat were higher. The bid for a Dec21 lift for spring wheat was averaged at C$308.89, up C$4.26. Durum averaged an increase of C$1.95 for Dec21 taking the bid to C$322.42. On the back of an envelope the durum bid converts to a Newcastle port equivalent price of roughly AUD$400 if using Italy as a destination.
Cash bids for canola in SE Saskatchewan were also firmer, up C$7.48 to C$686.48 for a Dec21 lift.

Thailand picked up 60kt of feed wheat off Cargill overnight at US$289.50CFR. This would equate roughly to a delivered port number something close to AUD$315 – $320 Newcastle depending on ocean frieght. This does tend to indicate that the local SFW1 market, in the short term, is probably full value when compared to international trades.

With 27% of the US spring wheat in head we should start to see better yield estimates and final production data hitting the market.