I was reading a post from Andrey Sizov from SovEcon yesterday. It was a view on the US futures market. Not riddled with predictions, but simply stated.
“I keep getting asked: why is wheat down so hard? Valid question. The list of reasons is long – and so is the list of reasons why it should be up. But that’s the wrong question. The #1 question: are funds really selling? If they are -play along while you figure out why”.
In other words, an interpretation of the old saying, “the trend is your friend”. It’s a difficult time in futures markets. Outside influence is a major issue.

Bloomberg reports that as of the end of May Russian spring wheat sowing was lagging behind. This is not all the issues that are being reported though. The high input costs for wheat and the low return are also seeing producers opt out of wheat in favor of summer crops. There is speculation that the area of spring wheat may decline to a multi year low, potentially below 10mha. So not exactly small. One might also assume that given the current season that those sown hectares are having they may also yield very well.

Turkey have announced the government buy price for durum, wheat and barley. Durum is valued at 16500TL (AUD$501.73 / tonne). Not only has the price not gone down so well with Turkish farmers, but the payment period is also now amended out to 45 days, 15 more days than last year. The TMO general manager has gone public stating that payment will more likely be in 21 days but they have stated 45 days as a precautionary measure, the statement an attempt to calm producers.
US wheat export sales were distorted by YoY rolling but came in a little better than expected. A Reuters report claiming between 4.8mt and 10mt of Chinese winter wheat has sprouted was over looked. China rainfall and production maps are attached for subscribers.