Chicago Board of Trade wheat prices going sideways

At time of writing, the March wheat contract had settled in the middle of that range at 750 USc/bu.

Across the other major global price indicators, such as the Kansas City Board of Trade, Minneapolis Grain Exchange, Euronext Matif (French) or CBoT Black Sea wheat contracts the trend has been largely the same - sideways.

The Australian dollar however has rallied from 68USc to 71USc over the same period which equates to an erosion of the Australian wheat price of around $17/t at current futures values.

Global futures values are tools to help provide a price guide for wheat.

Another is what the traded price was for actual physical cargoes of wheat.

Often only snippets of information about these transactions are available publicly, but what is available to analyse provides helpful insight.

In the past week we have had two such insights.

Iraq purchased 150,000t of 11 per cent protein Australian wheat at US$445/t cost and freight to the port in Umm Qasr.

This worked back to about $556/t FIS WA and $533/t track east coast Australia.

South Korea bought some Australian feed wheat at US$349/t cost and freight.

This works back to $430/t FIS WA and $410/t track east coast Australia.

Australian grain markets were more sporadic last week than they have been recently.

Perhaps the Australia Day holiday on Thursday saw many take some extra time off.

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This created the feeling of a slightly softer tone in local markets with 29 different buyers purchasing grain through Clear Grain Exchange compared to 39 the week prior.

When we compare traded values achieved last week with the week prior however, most values were flat, some improved and some (mainly wheat grades in New South Wales) decreased $5-10/t week-on-week.

APW1 wheat was trading $390/t Pt Adelaide, $386/t Pt Kembla, $378/t Melbourne and $377/t Newcastle.

Traded values of ASW1 continued to differ significantly across the country with Pt Giles trading $380/t, Portland $374/t, Newcastle $367/t and Albany $350/t as examples.

Discounts to lower wheat grades are tightening, with stock feed wheat trading $400/t Geelong, $365/t Portland and $360/t Pt Giles.

AUH2 is often attracting premiums to APW1 depending on location.

Durum was also trading in Newcastle.

Make sure you have your grain offered for sale at the price you want so all buyers can see it and try to buy it - create demand for your grain.