US wheat futures rallied higher overnight. Speculative trade on thoughts that Russia may put some form of export restriction on wheat to manipulate prices higher seemed to be the catalyst. The Russian ministry had “suggested” that the export pace of Russian wheat be slowed yesterday. Could it be this is purely an attempt to push prices higher or is it potentially indicating that the 100mt wheat crop Russia claims to have harvested this year is a little on the high side. Time will tell. Weekly export pace has been sold with Russia shipping over 1mt last week.
The US wheat futures market is, and has been for a while, carrying a huge net short position from the funds. During this time, the funds have been well in control of the US wheat futures market, and there’s been little chance of a rally. This does leave many positions open to stop loss orders should a rally occur. The move higher in last night was probably as much to do with taking some profit as it was marketing from the Russians.

A quick look around the world wheat regions and the current weather maps. In the US much of the hard red winter wheat belt remains exceptionally dry. Western Kansas, the Panhandle and NW Texas have seen as little as 20% of average March rainfall on the back of a very dry winter. The US spring wheat belt will have no moisture issues once the 3′ of snow covering parts of it melts. The same could be said for the Canadian Prairies.
Argentina has seen some good falls over the last couple of weeks, there are still some dry parts, but the bulk of the cropping country has seen 90% to 120% of average rainfall for this period over the last couple of weeks.  Some parts of Cordoba have received as much as 100mm.  India, a wet harvest.
Much of France and Germany have seen falls between 15 and 50mm for the past fortnight, pretty much bang on the average for this time of year. Crop rating for wheat in France were good, durum improving in the SE as falls there were a little heavier. Black Sea conditions are mixed, generally good.