Portland Grain Review 05/29

May 29, 2018 Portland Price Trends 05-01-17 08-01-17 04-01-18 05-15-18 05-29-18 #1 SWW (bu) 4.87 5.20 5.80 6.00 6.05 White Club 5.02 5.30 5.80 6.00 6.05 DNS 14% 6.88 8.38 7.03 7.78 7.73 HRW 11.5% 5.36 5.65 6.17 6.70 6.86 #2 Corn (ton) 161.00 148.00 175.00 186.00 184.00 #2 Barley 125.00 125.00 152.00 155.00 155.00 Wheat...White wheat prices lost a little ground coming out of the long weekend, but held near the best price levels in nearly three years. Hard red winter 11.5% protein also hit the $7 mark this morning for the first time in over three years. New crop August bids for white wheat were also at $6 in early trading today, while hard red winter topped at $6.88 and hard red spring posted near $7.70. Crop Progress...Weekly crop ratings showed the Pacific Northwest winter wheat crop continues to improve, as recent warm and wet weather is proving beneficial to crop development. The three-state weighted index has shown improvement for the second straight week; setting at 107% of average which is second only to the 2012 crop as one of the best-rated for this time of year since 2000. Over the past week, the excellent category for Idaho was up 6% and Washington gained 8 points. Shipments...Weekly export inspections showed a rebound in the the pace of U.S. wheat loadings last week, coming in at 15.8 mb to put year-to-date shipments at 863 mb and 13% behind a year ago. Top shipper was hard red spring wheat with 6.5 mb, followed by hard red winter with 3.9 mb and soft white at 1.4 mb. Japan was the top destination off the west coast, taking a total of 4.1 mb; China was a notable take of 2.3 mb of hard red spring and Taiwan rounded out the top three destinations with 1.3 mb. -Norm Ruhoff Contributing Analyst Copyright 2018 DTN/Telvent. All Rights Reserved.