Monday Market Briefing - 31st January 2022

Another choppy but ultimately sideways week ended with a slightly firmer tone. Egypt bought 400,000 mt of wheat in their latest tender late Friday. Nothing unusual in that but the detail is interesting - it's for March shipment and will load in Romania, Russia and Ukraine - all of course Black Seas origins. Do Russian traders have the inside nod to carry on as normal?  If nothing else, the trades illustrate how quickly things in our markets would go pear-shaped if the region does descend into chaos.

As a side note, this season Egypt has bought almost 1 million tonnes (20%) less wheat than in the previous year to date. Does that point to 'demand destruction' at high prices, or a late season rush to catch up? Bit of both probably. Normally we would expect to see prices under some pressure as the Continental crop emerges from the winter in pretty good shape, but it's hard to see new-crop getting much cheaper with pent up buying demand so visible.

At home most old crop markets have a slightly tired look to them, buyers are hard to pin down at the supposedly higher levels. Markets still lack proper direction but expect the slightly firmer tone to persist. 

Have a good week.