Monday Market Briefing - 24th April 2023

The previous Fridays £5 rally was washed out last week and we ended up bumping along the bottom of recent support levels, does the market have the momentum to test below ?  The key to the markets next direction will be new crop prospects, and we don’t know enough on that yet to call one way or the other so perhaps markets will be reluctant to push lower for the time being.

Ursula von der Leyen allocated another Euro 100 million to compensate Member State farmers adversely affected by cheap Ukrainian over-land imports. A lot of grain intended for transit to Western European markets has been getting stuck in Eastern European Countries such as Poland and Romania due to logistical challenges, with predictable effects on those markets. It is expected that those easterly members will re-open the routes they briefly closed on the proviso that all arrivals are guaranteed for onward transit ostensibly for export but just as likely to land in our own target markets of Spain and Netherlands. It’s impossible to gauge when the old crop campaigns for the Black Sea Countries will have run their course but for the time being they continue to impact us adversely.

Home markets remain open for all grades of all grains, after a quiet April there is a visible uptick in shipping activity coming now so you might even find buyers hunting for top ups for some things when ships are around which always adds a bit of sport to the job.

Have a good week.