Chicago wheat Wv1 jumped over 3% in overnight trade, as the U.S. market reopened after Monday's Labor Day holiday, before paring gains. GRA/
After market disappointment over a lack of a breakthrough in a weekend visit by U.S. envoys to Moscow and Kyiv pushed prices higher, news of a call between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin shifted the focus back to a possible resolution of the 4-1/2-year-old war.
"Prices are consolidating. There's a hope that the war will end but no one dares to be short in this market," a futures trader said, adding that the run-up to widely followed U.S. government crop forecasts on Friday was also curbing prices.
Tit-for-tat attacks by Russia and Ukraine on each other's ports and shipping have brought the countries' huge Black Sea exports to a near halt, pushing Chicago prices to a 3-1/2-year peak last week.
Monday's cancellation of a wheat import tender from Saudi Arabia seeking 535,000 tons, due to high prices, also suggested that buyers were holding back. There was talk that offers were around $100 a ton more than what the Saudi state buyer paid in its previous tender in early July.
“The Saudi tender looks like a new example of demand destruction because of high prices with offers said to have been mostly well over $370 a ton c&f (cost and freight included) which is a painful level,” a German trader said.
There were also signs that loadings at Russia's biggest Black Sea grain terminal may be picking up after recent stoppages due to drone strikes.
“Broker reports are that loadings are resuming in Novorossiysk with three vessels said to be taking on grains today,” another trader said.
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