The bottom feeders are active in wheat, physical and futures. Egypt picked up 770kt of milling wheat, mostly Russian but also 50kt of Bulgarian. The value was poor, lower that anticipated, but the volume was more than was expected. Algeria had a 50kt tender filled, Algeria do not make public their tender results public but the trade tend to agree that the volume / value was around 840kt @ US$279 +/-. Thailand picked up 175kt of feed wheat.

US wheat futures bounced off some seriously low numbers. This year we’ve seen nearby SRWW futures at Chicago trade under 530c/bu 5 times in March, prior to that you need to look back to August 2020 to find a lower number. In 2020 the 2019-20 world wheat ending stocks were 300.91mt, the 2020-21 projection was 316.79mt, world wheat stocks were expected to build year on year. The current 2024-25 projected ending stocks are 257.24mt, the previous year is 260.99mt. You can see that current ending stocks are much lower than the 2019-20-21 numbers.
Just as a point of interest the average AUD was 70.2 in July 2020 and 71.9 in August 2020. The bid for APW NTP Newcastle for December 2020 averaged AUD$299 in July 2020 and AUD$282 in August 2020. Current new crop APW NTP Newcastle is bid at $342. The difference in currency makes up for about AUD$20.00 of that difference, taking the 2020 avg closer to AUD$301 at today’s AUD. Possibly leaving basis to mop up the balance of the difference, about 73c/bu (AUD$37), avg July 2020 basis was about AUD$21.
Support in US wheat futures came from both a technical and physical perspective. Technical buying, as with the physical, spurred on by the low price of wheat in comparative terms. Talk that Egypt are going to build another 1.5mt of silo capacity,taking total capacity to roughly 5mt filtered through the market. Longer term this should allow Egypt to take advantage of lower international prices when they occur.
Trade expectations for tonight’s USDA wheat export sales and shipping volume range from a sales number low of 225kt to a high of 600kt, big range.