Corn and soybeans were firmer on Friday, but wheat proceeded to push the downside into the weekend. Chicago wheat was down by 6 ½ to 8 ½ cents. KC HRW futures closed 8 ¼ to 9 cents lower. Minneapolis spring wheat prices were 3 ¼ cents weaker for the close. Recall the market will be closed on Monday in recognition of President’s Day.
Weekly CoT data showed the spec traders were lightening their net short in CBT wheat via rolling existing shorts to new longs. On net the group reduced their net short by 11,066 contracts to 55,672 contracts – their lightest net short since August. The funds were shown with a 36,408 contract net short in KC wheat after some light net new selling for the week. Managed money funds were buying MGE wheat during the week which reduced their net short to 24,832 contracts.
The wheat export bookings were 349,286 MT for the week of 2/8 according to the USDA’s FAS data. That was a ~30k MT decrease from the week prior and near the lower end of the expected range, but was up 66% from sales during the same week last year. USDA had shipments at 405k MT for the week, which brought the season total to 11.5 MMT. That still trails last year by 11%, though the +72% of unshipped sales on the books has wheat commitments at 17.6 MMT compared to 16.5 MMT at the same time last year.
Egypt’s GASC tender resulted in buying 120k MT of wheat from Ukraine and 60k MT of wheat from Romania.
IGC revised the 23/24 wheat carryout 1 MMT tighter on increased trade to 265 MMT.
Mar 24 CBOT Wheat closed at $5.60 1/2, down by 6 1/2 cents,
May 24 CBOT Wheat closed at $5.59, down by 8 1/4 cents,
Mar 24 KCBT Wheat closed at $5.67 1/4, down by 8 1/2 cents,
Mar 24 MGEX Wheat closed at $6.54 3/4, down by 3 1/4 cents,
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