Wheat: If It Doesn't Go Up From Here I Will Show My Arse In Lidl's Window

EU wheat futures closed lower Friday, with a lack of fundamental news shifting traders attention to the global recession and its possible impact on grain demand.

Paris May milling wheat ended down EUR1.75 at EUR141.00/tonne, and London May feed wheat closed down GBP1.50 at GBP112.00/tonne.

There is a general lack of export demand around and large old-crop stocks, throw in the current malaise regarding the world economic situation and the market is struggling to see beyond that.

We seem to me to be in a situation strangely reminiscent of twelve months ago in my humble opinion. Yet in mirror form.

Then if you can recall, and I'm sure you can, pretty much every man & his dog were bullish beyond belief. Crude was going to $200+ for sure and we were on a one-way road to riches.

Despite sharply higher plantings and an outlook for increased supplies all round the world feed wheat was £200/tonne. Taxi-driving blokes you knew casually in the pub were asking you about the wheat market.

People (in the UK for my continental readers) were going long tapioca at £170, sugar beet at £180 and bloody soya hulls at £150. It was a certainty wasn't it?

Erm, well no it wasn't actually was it, crude never did make $200/barrel and the rest as they say is history.

So here we are, almost twelve months to the day later, and the boot is well and truly on the other foot. The greyhounds and miniature schnauzers are bearish as hell. There is for sure no way out of this downwards spiral is there, and we are all going to die a slow and painful death.

The one thing you can rely on boys when the whole of the world is on the brink of a recession that hasn't been seen since the 1930's is what? That's right GOLD. Gold broke through $1,000/ounce today, very close to its all-time high set last March, and is predicted by some to make $2,000/ounce. I don't know about you, but I don't normally fancy gold when I'm hungry.

For me, all the signs are there that grains can easily appreciate substantially from where they are today. They aren't even very difficult to spot, they are all well documented on here. But then again the signs that things were well overcooked twelve months ago weren't that difficult to spot either.

The pound is goosed (and the euro too for that matter), world wheat production will be well down - much more so than current "official" predictions, and consumption is not going to fall - despite our appetite for gold. And none of that takes into account a crop disaster somewhere.

I'm not saying that today is the bottom of the market or anything as crazy as that mind. And I don't think that they have a Burtons window around here any more, so I may have to be content with Lidl.

I feel so much better when virtually nobody agrees with me, I don't know why that should be, but there you go.