Jonathan Lane, Gleadell’s Trading Manager, comments on the OSR market

The old-crop market is very quiet, both in the UK and across Europe. Old crop MATIF futures are close to unchanged from this time last week.

Crops look very good across the Continent and we can expect a new crop production figure for Europe around 21mln t, mainly due to increased crop sizes in France and the UK.

This week has seen more new crop activity with some cargoes traded FOB UK. August and November MATIF futures are slightly firmer from last Thursday, mainly in-line with soybeans, which have ticked higher after Monday’s USDA stocks and plantings report. There’s still not much farmer selling in Argentina whilst Brazil’s harvest is progressing well and is now in its final 20%.

With new crop rapeseed taking some direction from soybeans, downward pressure remains likely given the large planting intentions for beans rather than corn in the US. USDA’s domestic 2014/15 soybean area forecast came in at 81.493mln acres, higher than trade estimates and above the 79.5mln estimated pre-Christmas.