European market

Prices for all products fell yesterday against a backdrop of fears about the spread of the coronavirus. The consequences of this epidemic are not measurable to date. The operators express their fears about both a drop in the flow of goods and especially about global demand weakening if the number of countries infected with the virus increase. The fears this morning relate to Italy with 7 official deaths. The veg oils market suffered the biggest drop. The rapeseed prices lost about - 6 €/t.

Currency prices have changed little, with the euro posted this morning at 1.0850 against the dollar. Crude oil prices, on the other hand, lost ground, a product that depended a lot on economic growth. The stock markets were also struggling with a yesterday fall of the CAC 40 by almost - 4 %.

From a climatic point of view, conditions remain very favorable in the Black Sea area, suggesting today that a very good wheat crop will be harvested in Russia.

On the international scene, Saudi Arabia has confirmed the purchase of 715,000 t of wheat, optional origin. The suppliers should mainly be Germany and Poland, maybe Russia in view of the required characteristics. The USA sold a little bit more than 163,000 t of soybeans to Mexico.

In Canada, rail blockages also weighed on the flow of goods, putting pressure on canola prices.

American market

Very sharp fall in prices was observed yesterday in Chicago, in all products, with the spread of the coronavirus as the main reason. This leads to precautionary sales linked to the risk of a fall in global economic growth and therefore in the flow of goods. From a technical point of view, this fall is followed by the breaking of support levels.

Wheat prices marked a clear decline accentuated by the prospect of abundant harvests in the Black Sea area. Soybean prices, the followers of oilseeds and sensible to biofuel demand, are also decreasing. Only corn was losing ground slightly, thanks to good export figures posted by the USDA last week.

The funds were net sellers yesterday for 15,000 lots of corn, 12,000 lots of soybeans and 15,000 lots of wheat.

Black Sea market

The unusually high temperatures that have been recorded in Ukraine in recent months have made it possible to start field works earlier than usual. Thus, in the southern and central regions of Ukraine producers have already started to put the fertilizers on winter crops, while in the south of the country, near Odesa, some farmers are sowing spring barley.

In addition, the arrival of cyclone Julia on the territory of Ukraine should bring a lot of precipitation, increasing the soil moisture reserves which will have a positive impact on the winter crop conditions.