Currencies

Unfortunately, the highly anticipated ‘Freedom Day’ saw dips in the £ against both $ and € with concerns rising that the anticipated additional public spending will now be slowed because of the ‘Pingdemic’ with venues either forced to close or the public just being too wary to socialise in the same way as they were pre pandemic.

Global confidence in the UK’s recovery has also taken a hit this week with the US government openly now telling people not to travel to the UK.

The drop we have seen is not huge by any means and still very much in that small range we have been stuck in for the past 12 months but with the City investors hoping that 19th July would finally see us push through key resistance levels and break free of these ranges, to go the other way is being viewed as quite a blow.

Wheat

For cereals, the week has been very much a week of two halves. Following the USDA downgrade of Spring wheat by 40% year on year and continued forecast for dry weather, markets all started the week moving sharply up.

Europe followed this pattern with the opposite issue of wet weather in parts of Europe and Russia now threatening to hamper harvest progress. Concern over both Russian quality and volume is giving the global markets more underlying support. With Russia being the largest global wheat exporter, any revisions to their projections are bound to have a knock on effect.

Towards the back end of the week, an improving weather forecast has meant markets have turned with corn leading the way for other markets. The UK barley harvest is progressing well but with the early understanding that yields are not as good as had been hoped and quality is extremely variable.

All this weeks swings have gone to show us is that stocks for all agriculture commodities are on a knife edge and there is no margin of error this year. Weather will continue to be the main driver until the point we can understand exactly where production figures are for some of these key wheat growing areas around the world. This makes is extremely hard to say where physical prices are likely to be against futures for new crop for probably at least another fortnight.

Soya

Soya has seen a slightly more positive week with US crop ratings revised 2 points up to 61% good/excellent with the prospect of rain in some of the drier growing areas. Chinese soya stocks are currently at a high due to the low hog prices pushing the more expensive soya out of favour in feed rations.

Again though, weather is still going to play a critical part over the coming weeks and August really will be the pivotal time for this crop and ultimately our UK winter prices.

And Finally…
Historical Drury Lane Theatre Set To Reopen Post Lockdown Closures With New £60m Facelift.

The 400 year old Georgian building in the heart of London’s theatre district has undergone a 2 year, £60 million revamp under current owner, Andrew Lloyd Webber. The work has restored many of the original 1812 features, originally designed by Benjamin Wyatt which has included restoring some areas of gold leaf by hand.

The main rotunda area has been restored, including the King and Princes entrances which came about as a result of disagreements between George III and the then Prince of Wales and later, George IV.

Here’s hoping that this historic building can now live on to entertain crowds for the next 400 years!

Regards,
Kay Johnson & Martin Humphrey