PARIS: Euronext wheat turned slightly higher on Monday, with a rebound in Chicago helping the market come off an earlier two-week low, while traders weighed up mixed export signals in Europe.
Benchmark May milling wheat on Paris-based Euronext settled 1.25 euro, or 0.7 percent, higher at 187.00 euros ($209.55) a tonne.
It fell earlier to 184.75 euros, its lowest since March 13, as Euronext saw a knock-on effect from corn-led losses in Chicago on Friday after widely followed US grain planting and stocks data.
A later rebound in Chicago wheat then helped Paris prices recover.
Euronext prices were dented last week by a setback for French wheat in an Egyptian import tender, which took the shine off a brisk month of port loadings in France.
Traders were now awaiting an import tender to be held on Tuesday by Algeria as a gauge of competition in France's main wheat export market.
"Against a backdrop of modest end-of-season stocks in France, prices for the 2018 crop should find support at current levels," consultancy Agritel said in a note.
"Upside to prices will nonetheless be limited by competition from Argentina, which is back in the running after the sharp fall in the peso and could be evenly matched against French wheat in Algeria's tender this week."
Traders noted that Algerian state buyer OAIC had unusually given a single two-week shipping period, May 16-31, rather than a month, and had also not indicated as previously an earlier shipping window for South American supplies.
Shipping data compiled by Reuters showed France shipped 1.6 million tonnes of soft wheat outside the EU in March, its biggest monthly volume since May 2016.
In addition to 500,000 tonnes exported to Algeria, the provisional data showed 386,000 tonnes had been sent to Morocco and 252,000 tonnes to Egypt.
Weekly European Commission data showed that EU soft wheat exports continued to catch up with last season's pace. The volume so far in 2018/19 was now 7 percent below last year's level after being about a quarter behind two months ago.
In Germany, premiums were underpinned by brisk wheat exports at a time of slow farmer selling.
"Germany has a busy export programme with ships being loaded for destinations such as Saudi Arabia and South Africa," one German trader said.
"But prices have fallen by about 20 euros a tonne since the beginning of this year following the drop in Paris and farmers are unwilling to sell."
Standard bread wheat with 12 percent protein for April delivery in Hamburg was offered for sale unchanged at around 8 euros over Paris May.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.