Analyst Insights

• A lot happened last month!
• So much so that we ended up sharing over 100 Opinions on Czapp.
• With this, we understand you may have missed some things, so we’ve compiled the 10 most popular Opinions from October.

• Rains have arrived in the world’s key corn and wheat regions. With this, weather-related bullishness has now reduced slightly.
• However, we still have the uncertainty of La Niña ahead of us, which causes dry weather in South America, Europe and southern US.
• All these areas are in critical stages of crop development for wheat and corn.

• Specs have continued to buy in the raw sugar market, increasing their net spec long by over 10k lots (to 262k) as prices steadily rose.
• This buying was matched mostly by producer selling, increasing the gross commercial short position to 866k lots; the fourth largest on record.
• Since the data was captured, we have seen prices surpass 15c, before falling sharply below 14c to then recover slightly, suggesting spec buying has slowed.

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• This week, the main offtaker of Brazilian sugar was UAE with 210kmt nominated.
• So far, 3mmt of raws have sailed in October from CS.
• November line up stands at 1mmt.

Daily Market Price Update and Commentary 29th October 2020

• Raw sugar export parity remains well within in negative territory; 19c/lb is where we’ll see unsubsidised raw sugar exports for 2020/21 become competitive.
• The No.5 futures have strengthened slightly since last week; 480 USD/mt is where we’ll see unsubsidised low-quality white sugar exports for 2020/21 become competitive. 
• The USD/INR FX has remained stable this week, meaning it has no impact on export parity.

• We think Thailand will produce just 7.1m tonnes of sugar in 2021.
• This is because a lot of its farmers switched to plant cassava instead of cane

• As a result, Thailand has just 3.5m tonnes of sugar available to export, down 2.1m tonnes year-on-year.

Daily Market Price Update and Commentary 28th October 2020

• In previous reports, we explained how aluminium is produced and focused on how aluminium beverage cans are manufactured, filled and distributed.
• This is the final part of that story, namely, consumer trends, before we move on to aluminium foils, food and related packaging and food cans.
• The series is brought to you by Mark Oulton, former Manager and Trader at Cargill (18 years) and Global Research Manager at SGS (11 years).

• The Baltic Dry Index (BDI) settled at 1401pts on 22nd October, down 1.75% from our last update.
• This comes as a volatile Cape market sent the BDI spinning over the last month, with the index trading in a +750pt range during a period that was also marked by a new 2020 high when it settled at 2097pts on the 6th October.
• With the Cape 5TC fast retreating from the heady heights of $35,000 per day, this new direction has not trickled down into the smaller sizes.