European market
Net decline was registered yesterday in all markets, both commodities and equities. This is due to the resurgence of the COVID epidemic, which has led to fears of new confinements in many countries, leading to a new global economic slowdown.
In the agricultural markets, funds accompanied these fears by taking profits on long positions generated in recent weeks. However, caution will be needed as prices in the Black Sea basin, particularly in Russia, continued to rise.
Crude oil is back under the symbolic 40 $/b level on New York while the euro decreased to 1.1770.
Egypt is taking advantage of this downturn to relaunch a call for tenders for wheat for loading between 21 and 30 November. This tender is accompanied by a 180-day letter of credit with, in this context, the Black Sea origin should again be retained.
On the international scene, there is still a large export activity for soybeans of US origin with the sale of 132,000 t to China, 132,000 t to Pakistan and 171,000 t to an undisclosed destination.
Rapeseed prices have fallen in the wake of crude oil and canola, mainly for economic reasons, while the fundamentals still promise a certain tension on this product, particularly in view of the sowing conditions for the 2021 harvest, with severe water deficit from Western Europe to the Black Sea region.
The financial markets, which showed great signs of weakness on Monday, will be closely watched today.
American market
All products marked a sharp decrease yesterday in Chicago, with funds selling massively on fears of a second wave of COVID and a slowdown in economic activity and demand.
The corn crop rating rose by 1 point to 61% and the soybean rating was unchanged at 63%, while operators expected a 1 point decline for each of these crops.
Harvesting is estimated to be done at 8% in corn and 6% in soybean. Current weather conditions are favourable for an acceleration of field works.
Winter wheat sowings are 20% done, compared with 22% expected by traders, but still higher than the 19% to date on the 5-year average.
Funds were net sellers yesterday for 35,000 lots of corn, 16,500 lots of soybean and 20,000 lots of wheat.
Black Sea market
On the occasion of the publication of the weekly figures on the progress of the harvest, the Ukrainian Ministry of Economy yesterday revised downwards the figures for wheat and barley production. Wheat production is estimated now at 25.1 Mt compared to 26.9 Mt previously announced and barley production is revised downwards by 1 Mt to 7.8 Mt.
Harvests of late crops are continuing at a relatively steady pace with more than 4 Mt of sunflower, 0.7 Mt of corn and 0.6 Mt of soybean harvested. No data has yet been released on the progress of sowing.
