Ottimi grafici ditro.
Di seguito riporto una eccelente analisi sulla situescion attuale del wheat
May 22, 2006
Wheat Holding well on Breaks
The wheat complex surged to nine year highs last week on continued concerns about the hard red winter wheat crop in the US plains. While harvest is already moving quickly through the southern plains, there was still some hope that the crop in the central plains could recover if weather improved. But, the weather showed no signs of improving, with hot and dry weather continuing to take its toll on a quickly maturing wheat crop and prices surged on fundamental and technical buying.
The idea that harvest pressure would ultimately override remaining bullishness and rumors of east coast feed manufacturers importing wheat from Germany sent the market sharply lower on Friday, only to find plenty of buying on the break. Funds have been heavily long with record open interest in wheat and have consistently stepped up to defend their position on the pullbacks.
The fundamentals remain very positive; even as we near the end of the growing season, we’ll still have a bullish situation as we transition to a demand market after harvest. What harvest pressure we do get could well be erased in the fall during a normal seasonal rally, especially with supplies still needing to be rationed. Of course, if the weather turns poor for spring wheat, or corn and beans, all grains will see another round of buying.
Export sales have remained respectable despite the sharply higher prices buyers have to pay. While some buyers are able to blend the high priced US quality wheat with lower quality imports, others simply have to bite the bullet and pay the current rates. The world will see a significant drop in ending stocks for this new marketing year, and most of that comes from hard red winter, where the US will see historic low ending stocks. The rationing process is still in effect and exports will be much lower for hard red winters as prices move to protect domestic supplies.
Harvest reports confirm what we’ve been expecting, very low yields and light test weights, with estimates from 5 – 20 bushels/acre in TX and OK, test weights of around 55 # very common. Reports of test cutting in southern KS suggest that this harvest will be over almost as quickly as it started. With production so small this year and old crop stocks already very tight, ‘harvest pressure’ could be a mute point.
It’s very difficult to gauge where wheat prices can go from here. We are at major resistance points on the long term charts. With the seasonal tendency to move lower this time of year, the odds are that we’ll falter at these price levels. However, if prices continue to move higher, then the momentum could gain more strength and we’d be looking at the 1996 price levels for resistance levels.
We still don’t have a definitive top formation, so we do have to be careful about selling aggressively into this market, because a higher move from here could create major short covering, which could create huge buying power on its own. For hedgers, step lightly into this and focus on the ’07 and ’08 crop more so at this point, which will carry less upside risk. For the 2006 crop, consider just buying puts at this point to protect the downside, and not take on the upside risk.