Wheat prices at the end of the week completely lost the previous speculative growth

Wheat prices rose sharply last week amid shelling of Ukrainian ports, but at the end of the week traders began to take profits and quotes fell to the level of the previous week, adding a total of 5-10% for the month. For now, markets are awaiting final harvest data in the Northern Hemisphere.

September futures fell in price on Friday:

• by 1.2% to $258.8/t - for soft winter SRW wheat in Chicago (+0.8% for the week and +9.7% for the month),
• by 1.2% to $314.6/t - for hard winter HRW wheat in Kansas City (-0.5% and +7.2%),
• by 4.2% to $329.1/t - for hard spring HRS-wheat in Minneapolis (+0.9% and +10.6%),
• by 0.1% to $241/t - for Black Sea wheat in Chicago (+1.7% and +1.9%),
• by 1.5% to €247.75/t or $272.9/t - for wheat on the Paris Euronext (+0.2% and +4.8%).

Ukraine is increasing the volume of shipments through the Danube ports, and in July it already exported 720,000 tons of wheat compared to 325,000 tons last year. UZA experts believe that with the help of Romania, it will be possible to increase the export of grain through the Danube ports from the current 2 million tons to 3-3.5 million tons.

The rains are delaying the harvesting of wheat, which as of July 28, from 1.816 million hectares or 43% of the area, 8.06 million tons were threshed with a yield of 4.44 tons/ha (last year at this time, 8 million tons of wheat were harvested from 2.3 million hectares) . Rainfall will continue for another week, especially in the western regions, which will further deteriorate the quality of grain.

Prices for food wheat delivered to Danube ports remain at the level of $175-180/t or UAH 7,000-7,200/t, and for fodder, which is mainly offered by producers, at a low level of $160/t or UAH 6,500-6,700/t .

According to FranceAgriMer monitoring data, in France, as of July 24, soft wheat was harvested on 83% of the area (94% last year).

Experts of the European Commission reduced the forecast of wheat production in the EU in 2023 by 2.5 million tons to 126.4 million tons, which will be slightly inferior to last year's figure, and also reduced the estimate of wheat stocks in the EU from 20.5 to 17.4 million tons. although the wheat export forecast was left at the level of 32 million tons.

A reduced crop in the EU and a possible deterioration in the condition of the spring wheat crop in the US will support wheat prices this week, especially against the background of news of reduced wheat production in the Russian Federation, which continues to hide harvest data.