Currency
Sterling has struggled this week with news that Brexit negotiations have reached another stalemate, and the UK is threatening to leave without a deal and to also potentially go back on parts of the deal which had already been agreed. This came with a shooting comment that there needs to be ‘more realism from the EU’, resulting in sterling experiencing its biggest one day drop since March. The ever-evolving Brexit story will continue to cause currency volatility for the next few months.
Humphrey Feeds has an article specifically on the impact of Brexit on our website if you would like to read further into the subject and the effect on the market.
Looking at the US economy, the $ posted a 4 week high following better than expected unemployment data and the single biggest one day gain for tech stocks following their plunge earlier in the week which caused Elon Musk to lose $16.3 billion off his personal wealth and Jeff Bezos to lose $7.9 billion. Before you pity the tech entrepreneurs for their careless losses, Mr Musk still has $82.3 billion left to play with, and Mr Bezos $110 billion.
Wheat
Global prices have continued to rally this week although the US market in particular is showing real signs of slowing which tends to then give direction to the rest of the world’s cereal markets. This will be down to the continued realisation that upwards revisions relating to the Australian, Canadian and Russian crops are more than the downgrade to US and European crops.
This week French wheat moved into the territory where it became uncompetitive for export and the UK premiums are over the import price which all suggests prices have reached their top now and are due to correct. There is the added issue of the weakening sterling this week which will help support prices and may just delay any potential retrace (down) in the market. The UK harvest is now all but done in the South with the North of the country looking between 75-80% complete. Proteins for feed wheats are coming out around the 10-10.5% mark with bushel weights between 76-78 kg/h.
Soya
The soya rally appeared to be running out of steam earlier in the week despite continued strong sales to China and to the Philippines of US beans. Some of this correction was for the protection which was built in for US Labor Day. The USDA report on Friday lowered numbers but that had been expected. Despite this, the market has initially rallied on these figures and will need time to digest the news. The technical charts and crop data still show that soya is due a downward correction once the market has digested these new figures. It still makes this crop the third largest on record and there are signs now that China will withdraw from the market once they have filled their reserves. Looking at South America, they have revised their 19/20 crop numbers up by around 4 MlnT this week
And Finally…
New York City’s 19th Anniversary memorial for 9/11 will be unlike any other.
For the past 18 years New York City has honoured the nearly 3,000 people who lost their lives in the World Trade Center attacks following their pledge in 2011 that the city would never forget.
This year with the global pandemic still not showing any signs of disappearing, the city has had to come up with new ways to honour them. Instead of the usual stage and readings of the individual names, a pre-recorded version was played out from the museum on site. Families were invited to the memorial and museum but with Covid safety restrictions in place and the wider public were asked to stay away.
Some parts of the service did stay the same with bells ringing to mark the start of the silence marking the timeline of the attacks:
8:46 a.m., the moment when hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center;
9:02 a.m., when hijacked United Airlines Flight 175 struck the trade center’s South Tower;
9:37 a.m., when hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon;
9:59 a.m., when the South Tower collapsed; 10:02 a.m., when hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania;
10:29 a.m., when the North Tower collapsed.
The traditional two beacons of light also shone through the evening to mark where the two towers stood.
Plans are underway to mark next year’s 20th anniversary which is hoped will not be impacted by the events of this year.
Regards,
Kay Johnson & Martin Humphrey
