EU wheat rises to one-week high in light year-end trade

Paris wheat futures rose on Thursday to a one-week high as an increase in US prices lent support to a European market otherwise lacking direction during a year-end lull. March milling wheat, the most active contract on the Paris-based Euronext exchange, settled up 1.50 euros, or 0.9 percent, at 168.00 euros a tonne. After trading slightly higher for much of the session, it extended gains towards the close, touching its highest since December 20 at 168.50 euros.
Euronext prices were supported by a rise in Chicago, the global benchmark, where wheat futures added around 1 percent on the back of a weaker dollar. Traders said, however, that Euronext wheat remained within its recent range and that it was difficult to interpret Thursday's gains given light activity. "You can get abrupt price moves with very low volumes, and it's hard to see any trend," one futures dealer said. "There's nothing really new in the market today."
Trading volumes have been thin with many market participants taking leave between the Christmas and New Year holidays. An import tender held by Egypt underlined the dominance of Black Sea origins. In results reported by traders after the Euronext close, Egypt purchased 235,000 tonnes of wheat from Russia and Ukraine. It had earlier received bids for Russian, Romanian and Ukrainian wheat.
In Germany, standard wheat with 12 percent protein content for January delivery in Hamburg was offered for sale unchanged at 4.5 euros over the Paris March contract. Buyers were seeking an unchanged 3.5 euros over. "The Paris market did not create much impetus today while the cheap offers in the Egyptian wheat tender from the Black Sea region does not bring much hope for an export-led stimulus to the west European wheat market in the near future," one German trader said. In other export news, Morocco announced tenders to buy US and European Union wheat under annual preferential-tariff import quotas. Weekly EU export and import data for grains, usually released on Thursday, was not published due to the year-end holidays.