Monday Market Briefing - 30th October 2023

As markets head off into a sixth month of essentially flat sideways inaction, it’s quite difficult to see where the next move on prices will come from in the short term. Some European Consumers have bought southern hemisphere cover in case they need to bring in higher quality grains later in the season, particularly on malting barley, but that is probably not going to be necessary and those purchases will most likely be traded out to China in due course.

So attention everywhere switches for now onto the execution of the traditionally very busy autumn programme. Schedules for the UK are generally a bit lighter than in recent years as we deal with a reduced crop of indifferent quality. However this does mean there are still openings to place trades this side of the New Year at really good premiums. Feed wheat in the south of England lacks demand for all the reasons we’ve covered in recent weeks, but practically everything else has good activity to go after. The exceptionally wet weather will have ended any field work for a week or two so it’s a good moment to have a look at the markets for anything you want to move in next few weeks.

Have a good week.