Monday Market Briefing - 16th March

Shipping Activity:

MV Karirit: Planet Malting Barley, Shoreham

The economic impact of the coronavirus in Europe and US have really taken hold.  Interventions by governments to support ailing markets are having little effect, and only signs that the rate of virus spread is slowing/reversing is likely to help in the short term.  It is currently unclear when this might start to happen.

In common with other agri-businesses, Bartholomews has contingency plans in place to enable the core functions of our business to continue functioning - if and when we are directly impacted.

Most EU grain markets have fallen by €5-€10/MT over the past week, whereas the effect to UK grain mkts has been less severe because the value of Sterling has also been hit hard.  The huge global importance of the City of London normally supports Sterling as foreign investors buy our currency in order to invest in assets & companies listed on the LSE.  Unfortunately, the reverse is also true and the Pound will stay weak at least until stock markets stabilise.

As regards to Brexit progress, watch out for any news about the UK/EU trade negotiations being delayed. 
If there is a significant hold up, pressure will mount for both governments to acknowledge that the Dec 31st deadline has become impossible.  Pushing that back to June 2021 would be a fantastic thing for grain markets as it would make the whole 2020-21 season tradeable without tariff fears and thus bring much needed liquidity back.

We have four days of dry weather this week, so we expect a lot of drilling to be going on and a quiet week trading-wise.  Old crop malting barley is still tradeable but with the better weather forecast expect these bids to become much less frequent now.  The same goes for new crop; malting barley is at cheap levels historically, but with the uncertain world around us, don’t expect a rush by maltsters to buy forwards.

We have published our Harvest 2021 crop Oat terms for Mascani winter oats alongside a report detailing the oat markets in general.  You can find both of these on the grains page of our website. Please call the grains team if you would like to discuss this unique opportunity.

Have a good week.

Bartholomews Grain Marketing Team