The food wheat market in Ukraine and the world is showing a rapid change in trends. The speculative growth of quotations against the background of higher freight prices led to a temporary increase in prices, but in early December the situation changed dramatically. According to the Electronic Grain Exchange of Ukraine, purchase prices for food wheat in Black Sea ports in the first week of December decreased by $2–3/t, and for the week as a whole the decline reached $5–7/t and amounts to $214–216/t (10,250–10,400 UAH/t).

Feed wheat prices also showed a decrease of $2–4/t to $208–210/t (10,000–10,050 UAH/t). At the same time, Ukrainian wheat exports in the 2025/26 marketing year as of December 5 amounted to 7.45 million tons, which is 21.9% less than last year, although a slight improvement was observed in November.

Analysts expect that after the publication of the USDA report, stock quotes will continue to decline. This forces Ukrainian exporters to limit sales and maintain prices at a low level until the beginning of the new year. In addition, some buyers of Black Sea wheat will soon switch to a new crop from Australia and Argentina, which will accelerate the decline in the price of Ukrainian grain.

On the world market, the speculative growth of quotes, which was previously stimulated by geopolitical risks in the Black Sea, has ended. The focus of market participants is now on the expected "bearish" USDA report, which predicts a significant increase in world stocks and wheat production according to estimates by key exporters.

For example, StatCan has already raised its estimate for Canadian wheat production to a record 40 million tonnes. In the US, wheat exports in the 2025/26 MY as of December 7 amounted to 13.634 million tonnes, which is 20.91% more than last year. The improvement in the US winter crop situation is also putting pressure on quotes.

Soft wheat futures in Chicago, which have risen 3.6% in the past two weeks, have now returned to last month’s levels. Thus, December futures fell: by 0.2% to $196.95/t for SRW wheat in Chicago, by 1.2% to $191.4/t for HRW wheat in Kansas City, by 0.3% to $214/t for HRS wheat in Minneapolis, and on the Euronext exchange in Paris, the price of wheat decreased by 1.4% to €189.25/t ($220.4/t).

Overall, the wheat market is experiencing a period of price volatility, and market participants are closely monitoring global forecasts and news about the harvest, which directly affects Ukrainian prices and export volumes.