This time, there was no late rebound in wheat prices....MUCH MORE
Minneapolis spring wheat futures, the market leader of late, traded lower for nearly all the session and certainly closed there – the September contract closed 6.2% lower at $7.69 a bushel.
Not that the weather for the US northern Plains spring wheat belt is any more promising, although there were some unexpected showers overnight.
"Most of them were light to moderate," said WxRisk.com.
Still, those rains came too late to prevent the US spring wheat dropping by a further 3 points in the week to Sunday to a dismal 34% rated good or excellent.
And CHS Hedging noted that "the extended forecast calls for more hot and dry conditions in the major spring wheat growing areas, so conditions will likely deteriorate further".
'Certainly overbought'
Nonetheless, there was always going to be a time when the spring wheat market got vertigo.
"The move in the hard red spring wheat market has been straight up and certainly has become overbought," said Darrell Holaday at Country Futures.
"Profit taking dominates wheat trading," said Richard Feltes at RJ O'Brien.
It was hardly helpful that Informa Economics pegged the US spring wheat harvest at 434m bushels, representing a downgrade of only 14m bushels, and an estimate far larger than the sub-400m-bushel figures which have been doing the rounds....
Yes, if the farmers are selling, the speculators probably should too.
Or, as recounted in 2007's "EU Emission Caps, Kyoto and Three Ancient Civilizations":
...As a side note, in December 1979, while silver was making its historic run, an old Jewish trader told me he was lightening up on Ag.
When I asked why he said "I hear the Indian ladies are taking their bracelets off and they've been trading it longer than I have".
