Wheat prices depend on speculators

Wheat quotes in Chicago continue to grow due to speculative operations. On Wednesday, the December futures has risen again.

Even spring wheat in Minneapolis, which became cheaper in the last 6 weeks, a few increased in price. Speculators think that it is too oversold and do not pay attention to the data of Statistics Canada on the increase in residues of wheat.

In his statement yesterday, statistics Canada released new estimates of stocks of grains and oilseeds as of July 31.

In comparison with last year, stocks of all wheat increased by 32.6% to 6,865 million tonnes
At the same time stocks of durum wheat increased by 69,4% to 1,863 million tons
Stocks of soft wheat increased by 22.7% to 5,003 million tons.

The December quotations of wheat in the U.S.

• soft wheat SRW in Chicago by 1.01 $/t to 163,78 $/t,
• for hard wheat HRW in Kansas city by 1.38 $/t to 164,88 $/t
• on a hard spring wheat HRS in Minneapolis for 5,70 $/t to 236,81 $/t

French wheat on Wednesday began to fall despite a week-long speculative growth of the market in Chicago. The strengthening of the Euro and the expectation of large yields of wheat in Ukraine and Russia put pressure on the European quotes.

Besides, shipment of wheat to French ports is too slow.

• December futures milling wheat on MATIF fell by 0,75 €/t to 161,75 €/t (193,09 $/t).

In Ukraine, purchasing prices for wheat began to grow, primarily due to the depreciation of the hryvnia against the dollar. However, there is a slight increase in demand for fodder and food grain. Traders understand that a further decline in wheat prices will not, therefore, begin to activate the purchase.