Looks like the “bargain” hunters were active in US futures last night. Not the only hunters active, looks like someone cleaned out the UK parliament with a shot gun too. Rat’s fleeing a sinking ship, something more sinister in the near future, who knows, but it is certainly one of the largest shake ups I can remember in any political party, keep in mind I was just a kid in the 70’s.

This week’s storm activity across the central corn belt in the USA may keep the punters on the buy side a little longer. The decline in both corn and soybean condition ratings this week surprised a few. With very severe weather continuing across Nebraska, Iowa and parts of Illinois this week we may well see further declines in the G/E rating of row crops again next week. As for wheat, the weather continues to drag harvest progress out. In Kansas yields have generally been better than expected but test weight has suffered thanks to the constant showers throughout the harvest period.
Severe storms are expected across the western spring wheat region today. Eastern Montana and western N.Dakota are predicted to see serious storms today. This may result a further decline in the G/E rating for spring wheat, which was also rated sharply lower week on week on Wednesday.

The jump in wheat futures was reflected in cash bids for spring milling wheat in SE Saskatchewan. 1CWRS13.5 grade wheat for a December lift rallied C$17.42 per tonne to C$401.55. Meanwhile durum wheat in the same region actually fell away by C$15.21 per tonne to C$465.25, greatly narrowing the spread between milling and durum wheat. Looking at the weather map there we see little to no rain is expected across the Canadian durum belt, so the fall in price may be a little speculative. Although French values out of the SE of France were also back around AUD$15.00 / tonne.