Good weather and planting reports in the US, as well as news of continuing high stock levels in the UK, continued to push markets down in Monday’s trading, with grain futures in Europe and the US losing ground – except for maize traded in Paris, which edged slightly upwards.

This seems to resume the downward trend observed since the end of last month, which paused only for a short while on Friday.

Europe

On the Euronext exchange (MATIF) in Paris, wheat prices stabilised on Friday, recouping some of the week’s losses and coming back to levels observed on 2 May at €151/t for deliveries this month and €175/t for May 2017 futures.

European maize, too, slowed down its descent at the end of last week, with June 2016 contracts closing on €160.5/t, down 1€/t, and June 2017 contracts up 75c/t to €171.75/t.

We are now reporting November 2016 futures for rapeseed, which edged up €2/t on Friday to close on €368.25/t. May 2017 contracts were up €1.25/t to €370.25/t.

Chicago

The story was similar in Chicago, with dollar prices remaining static on Friday – though a strengthening euro caused prices to appear to drop slightly in euro terms.

Wheat futures remained virtually unchanged at $166.5/t (€145.5/t) for May 2016 and $190.4/t (€166.3/t) for May 2017.

Corn (maize) futures, too, failed to show any clear direction at $148/t (€129.3/t) for May 2016 (up $1.7/t) and $155.2/t (€135.6/t) for May 2017.