(3 of 3)
The Soviet purchases should have little, if any, impact, however, on prices at the supermarket. With grain prices so depressed, it would take a huge jump in the farm cost of wheat, for example, to add even 20 or 30 to the price of a loaf of bread. Stung most by the Russians' ploy will be the big grain speculators, who were selling grain futures contracts short this spring and summer in the expectation that prices would fall even lower. The Soviet shortfall changed all that and taught the speculators—as well as Washington officials—a little more about the cagey Russian grain buyer.