Commodities

Wheat Prices -11 Year High

Wheat prices surged to a fresh 11 year highs on Tuesday amid concerns about further production losses after extreme weather damaged the Australian and European cereals crops.

Middle East and North African countries, such as Morocco, have rushed into the market to secure wheat supplies, underpinning prices, according to traders.

Chicago CBOT September wheat pushed above the $6.70 a bushel level for the first time since 1996 and later was trading up 5¼ cents to $6.69 ¼ a bushel.

European milling wheat futures rose in Paris to €220 per tonne, the highest since the contract was launched on the Euronext.Liffe platform in 1998. The contract later traded €4 higher at €215.50 a tonne.

Rainer Guntermann, analyst at Dresdner Kleinwort in Frankfurt, said: “”Extremely hot and dry weather conditions in Southern Europe and Australia as well as rain and floods in Northern Europe have tightened global supply for agriculture products.”

CBOT September soyabeans traded 0.7 cents higher at $8.26¾ a bushel while corn was flat at $3.25¾ a bushel.

Base metals rose across the board on the view that US credit market turmoil will not have a global impact. Emerging countries are the main drivers for consumption in the world’s base metal markets.

Copper rose 0.8 per cent to $7,735 a tonne and aluminium firmed 0.4 per cent to $2,665 a tonne.

Lead reversed Monday’s heavy losses and rebounded 1.5 per cent to $3,120 a tonne. The heavy metal, used in the batteries industry, has risen 83 per cent since January.

Oil prices consolidated after losing more than $3 a barrel in the last hours of Monday’s session in New York.

Nymex September West Texas Intermediate was flat at $72.06 a barrel while ICE September Brent rose 43 cents to $71.60 a barrel.

Goldman Sachs said oil’s sell-off was the result of a massive liquidation of speculative bets on rising prices rather than a change on the market fundamentals. The bank warned that the liquidation could continue and “cause WTI prices to drop by another $5 a barrel.”

Gold edged lower as the dollar steadied against the euro ahead of this evening’s rate verdict from the US Federal Reserve.

The precious metal eased back to $668.3 an ounce troy after rising on Monday to $672.20 in New York trading.