Monday Market Briefing - 6th February 2023

Markets had a second positive week, ending a modest £2 higher to settle at roughly early January levels and it does look like we have a solid floor in the market for the time being. Buyers may feel they’ve seen the lows for this season and start to increase their activity for spring/summer positions - encouraging signs and even some optimism in the world economy continues to grow especially in the United States which can only help our markets too. Egypt continues to gorge on Russian wheat, buying another 580,000 tonnes exclusively from that origin in their latest tender – all for shipment Feb-March. This leaves plenty of other markets open for European material and hence, trade flows for this season appear relatively settled now, everyone has figured out where to go to get what they need, and its just a question of how much they will buy. Right now we don’t feel super-bullish but another quietly supported week would do just fine.

As we head towards the spring, attention switches to new crop prospects and these will become the driver for price direction in the next two months,  although always with the caveat of the impact the Ukraine War can still have either way. The US continues to experience some quite extreme weather patterns and that will be a concern going into the planting season for their massive corn crop.

Home markets are seeing good activity on most crops and grades and there is a healthy level of engagement from buyers and sellers. All grades of milling wheat from hards and softs through to top grade group ones are currently in demand.

Have a good week.