Lower corn and soybean futures weighed on grains last night. Wheat at Chicago and Minneapolis also slipped lower. There wasn’t a lot of green on the screen from anywhere really. Paris corn struggled to close higher, putting on less than a Euro across most outer months. Rapeseed futures at Paris were not much different, up just E0.25/t nearby and flat in the Feb 27 slot. Paris milling wheat was lower by the close, back E2.00 in the Dec 26 slot.

The US wheat export sales pace isn’t great, back 30% on the is time last year. Last years pace was good though. US wheat rallied higher in recent weeks on the prospect of increased sales due to the disruption of Black Sea supplies, but to date this has not gone as expected.
This week did see some export tenders, but all they done was highlight just how expensive US wheat is.
Taking last nights decline in US HRWW values into account. Aussie H2 wheat is still cheaper C&F Asia. Unless we see US export sales increase, there is a good chance US wheat, cash and futures values, will continue to fall. Currently there is no real reason for Aussie wheat values to fall in unison though, being that Aussie wheat is already cheap in comparison.

The Canadian durum farmer finally saw cash prices out of SE Saskatchewan improve after weeks of being flat. The average cash price reported by pdq was CAD$299.32/t for a Dec 26 lift, a day to day increase of CAD$6.43/t. This still prices 1CWAD13 durum at a big discount to 1CWRS13.5 spring wheat though, which is priced at CAD$316.75/t for the same window, down CAD$4.91/t on the day. Canadian weather looks likely to clear up enough to see some harvest activity again over the weekend and into next week, after storms washed many fields out over the last couple of weeks. There is a lot of talk of downgrading of durum wheat. Indicating that the 20%-30% that was harvested before the rain is likely to be the best of the season, the rest potentially feed grain.