Technically wheat is neutral now, a week of lower closes at Chicago appears to have done its job in the futures market. There’s a good chance we’ll see technical support creep back into wheat over the next couple of days.
Fundamental support will come from a dry outlook for the US hard red winter wheat belt. The fact that a large slice of Kansas and south central Nebraska missed the last rainfall will also help, but there were better falls in Texas and Oklahoma.
The outlook for rain around the Black Sea is mixed. Dry parts of Ukraine are expected to see some good falls. This coincides with the completion of sowing winter wheat there. Temperatures are still above average so the freshly sown crop should be able to take advantage of the moisture. Further east in southern Russia the rain was less widespread leaving a large area east of the Black Sea with little to no additional moisture. Small pockets north of  Krasnodar and SW of Volgograd have seen 100% of average rain for the last 30 days but generally this region is looking at just 20% – 40% of normal autumn rainfall to date.
Offer values of Black Sea wheat fell away a little yesterday on the back of not just the rainfall mentioned above but also on the back of a sharply weaker exchange rate. Earlier in the week one US dollar could buy 75.6 Russian ruble, yesterday that had increased to 79.5 at one stage. This has allowed FOB offers in US dollar out of the Black Sea to reduce a little from the recent highs. The move in currency is worth about US$12.75 to the grower there if the wheat price stayed flat.
Durum bids in SW Saskatchewan were flat to firmer for Q1 2021, Feb values were equivalent to about $415 Newcastle port NSW.