Markets face sharp decline
July 20, 2017
We saw a rather volatile market last week with US wheat futures posting a sharp decline, with corn and soybeans also dropping across the week on the back of a bearish USDA WASDE report. While the Chicago and Kansas exchanges were lower, Minneapolis, which trades higher protein wheat compared to Chicago, closed higher. This was due to weather concerns in already drought affected areas of the US, as well as speculation of a possible shortfall in high protein milling wheat supplies. Locally, this saw a softening in the market, with both old crop and new season prices back anywhere from $5-20AUD.
Coming into this week we have seen prices remain relatively stable, despite an increase in the AUD/US exchange rate of over 2USc since the beginning of the month.