The Good: Wheat markets had a good day with nearby spring wheat July futures jumping by 13 cents per bushel to settle at US$6.67 per bushel. The good news is that spring wheat tested the highs set at the end of March. Wheat futures were boosted by frost concerns in the Southern Plains which drove Kansas City futures up by 17 cents per bushel. Chicago futures lagged the other two futures markets and posted gains of only five cents per bushel. The frost concern is due to the advanced state development of the crop and freezing temperatures are forecast to dip into the 30F range in western Kansas. This is good news for spring wheat markets as concerns rise about the size of the HRW crop this year.
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The Good, Bad & Ugly
The Good: The spring wheat July contract finished up by two cents per bushel to settle at US$6.54 per bushel. The…
The Bad: Canola futures were up today with the nearby July contract closing up by C$5.70 to settle at C$724.30 per tonne. The bad news is that the contract tested the 20 day moving average but failed to hold the gains during the session. The 20-day moving average lies above the C$731 per tonne level while today’s high managed to hit only C$729.10 per tonne. The bad news is that canola seems to be quite happy trading in the C$720 to C$725 per tonne trading range.
The Ugly: The oat exports to the U.S. remain disappointing according to recent data from the CGC. Exports in week 36 totaled 23,100 tonnes which brought exports to date to only 579,800 tonnes. This is 304, 500 tonnes behind last year’s pace and the slowest pace in the past 10 years. The drop in shipments were mostly to the U.S. according to the latest monthly data from the CGC. Shipments were down by 59,400 tonnes at the end of February with exports totaling 486,300 tonnes. Oat deliveries into the primary elevator system were 45,600 tonnes which compares favorably to last year at this time. The slow exports are ugly news for the oat markets this year with cash oats in Saskatchewan trading close to C$45 per tonne below last year at this time.
