Wheat prices climbed to their highest in four months on concern that unusually heavy rainfall in Australia would delay the harvest and reduce grain quality.
Wheat for March delivery advanced as much as 2.4 percent to US$7.98 a bushel, the highest level for the most-active contract since Aug. 6 on the Chicago Board of Trade and traded at US$7.9325 at 10:57am in Singapore yesterday. Exports from Australia, the world’s fourth-largest shipper, will be curbed as heavy rains and floods damage crops, Commonwealth Bank of Australia said.
Commonwealth Bank cut its estimate for the country’s wheat exports to 14 million tonnes in this year and next year, from an earlier 16 million tonnes.
“Many in the industry suggest the disruptions to the harvest this year and the implications for grain quality are the worst in a lifetime,” Luke Mathews, a commodity strategist at the bank, said in a report yesterday.
“Poor crop weather in Australia has pushed the market higher, increasing concern over tight global supply,” Han Sung-min, a broker at Korea Exchange Bank Futures Co in Seoul, said yesterday by telephone.
Futures have surged 65 percent since June 30 as drought in Russia and floods in Canada cut output, while dry weather in the US Great Plains threatened winter crops. Heavy rains in Australia, caused by a La Nina weather event that cools parts of the Pacific Ocean, helped drive wheat futures 13 percent higher in Chicago last week.
Rains were forecast in the next seven days, which may delay harvesting in most of the east-coast planted areas by at least a month, Mathews said.
The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, in a report due today, may lower its estimate of the nation’s harvest from 25 million tonnes and pare its forecast on exports from 18 million tonnes, Mathews said.
Lower shipments may drive up wheat prices as the US Department of Agriculture forecast a 22.9 million tonne shortfall in global output this season, the first deficit in three years.
The wet weather may cause more than 10 million tonnes of Australia’s wheat crop to be downgraded to lower-protein classes and to feed quality, Michael Creed, an agribusiness economist at National Australia Bank Ltd, said by telephone yesterday.
The bank estimates the total crop at 23.8 million tonnes.
SEEKING CLARITY: Washington should not adopt measures that create uncertainties for ‘existing semiconductor investments,’ TSMC said referring to its US$165 billion in the US Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) told the US that any future tariffs on Taiwanese semiconductors could reduce demand for chips and derail its pledge to increase its investment in Arizona. “New import restrictions could jeopardize current US leadership in the competitive technology industry and create uncertainties for many committed semiconductor capital projects in the US, including TSMC Arizona’s significant investment plan in Phoenix,” the chipmaker wrote in a letter to the US Department of Commerce. TSMC issued the warning in response to a solicitation for comments by the department on a possible tariff on semiconductor imports by US President Donald Trump’s
The government has launched a three-pronged strategy to attract local and international talent, aiming to position Taiwan as a new global hub following Nvidia Corp’s announcement that it has chosen Taipei as the site of its Taiwan headquarters. Nvidia cofounder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Monday last week announced during his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei that the Nvidia Constellation, the company’s planned Taiwan headquarters, would be located in the Beitou-Shilin Technology Park (北投士林科技園區) in Taipei. Huang’s decision to establish a base in Taiwan is “primarily due to Taiwan’s talent pool and its strength in the semiconductor
Industrial production expanded 22.31 percent annually last month to 107.51, as increases in demand for high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) applications drove demand for locally-made chips and components. The manufacturing production index climbed 23.68 percent year-on-year to 108.37, marking the 14th consecutive month of increase, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said. In the first four months of this year, industrial and manufacturing production indices expanded 14.31 percent and 15.22 percent year-on-year, ministry data showed. The growth momentum is to extend into this month, with the manufacturing production index expected to rise between 11 percent and 15.1 percent annually, Department of Statistics
An earnings report from semiconductor giant and artificial intelligence (AI) bellwether Nvidia Corp takes center stage for Wall Street this week, as stocks hit a speed bump of worries over US federal deficits driving up Treasury yields. US equities pulled back last week after a torrid rally, as investors turned their attention to tax and spending legislation poised to swell the US government’s US$36 trillion in debt. Long-dated US Treasury yields rose amid the fiscal worries, with the 30-year yield topping 5 percent and hitting its highest level since late 2023. Stocks were dealt another blow on Friday when US President Donald