Gleadell grain merchants offer a summary of the week's events in the global grain market

-Bumper Kazakhstan grain crop seen boosting grain exports.
-Egypt purchases Russian wheat – cheapest French offered at $18-20 higher.
-Ukrainian 2011 grain crop seen at 50-53mln/t – exports could increase if export duties removed.
-Larger than expected US corn/wheat stocks trigger sharply lower US prices.
-Canada sees 2011 all-wheat production at 24.16mln/t, lower than expected but higher than 2010.
-NFU sees 2011 UK wheat crop at 14.67mln/t citing adverse weather for yield reduction.
-Analysts see Chinese corn demand growing with US grain council putting imports at 5-10mln/t. 
-ECB meting to examine ways to ‘beef up balance sheets’ in an effort to avoid financial crisis.
-DEFRA announce UK crop size as a surprising 15.4mln/t. Exportable surplus at 2 to 3mln/t depending on bioethanol usage.
-Bank of England announce a further round of Quantitative Easing - £75billion being pumped into the economy. This either means we are in a deeper mess than we knew or that this will stimulate growth and be good news.

Summary

Bearish USDA stocks report sent market tumbling last week as higher US corn stocks seen now as adequate.

Wheat markets are still being influenced by macro-economics, but news of possible intervention from the ECB has consolidated equity and commodity markets over the past few days.

Long-term fundamentals remain supportive but, in the short-term, EU/US wheat cannot compete with cheaper Black Sea offers.