The wheat market settled with Chicago futures 1 ½ to 3 ¼ cents lower. KC futures closed 7 to 9 ¾ cents in the red on Wednesday. The July HRW/SRW spread is now to a 21 ¼ cent premium. Minneapolis spring wheat futures were 8 cents weaker at the close. September Minneapolis wheat is a 9 cent premium to May.
Pre-report estimates have wheat export sales ranging from 200k MT of cancellations to 550k MT of net new sales for old crop during the week that ended 3/7. Traders are also looking to see up to 100k MT of new crop wheat sales in the weekly report.
The report from FranceAgriMer citing Chinese wheat cancellations was clarified to be in reference to the USDA daily reporting system for the U.S. SRW cancellations and was not referring to any French wheat sales to China.
Wheat FOB prices were recently showing French and German wheat to be the most competitive, from ~$5.60/bu. Russian offers were ~11c over that and U.S. FOB prices were 66c more for SRW and $7.41 for HRW.
NASA’s GRACE root zone soil moisture shows Northern Texas and SW Kansas are significantly better than this time last year, and that Central Texas / Eastern OK have moved to historically normal ranges. The PNW still has some scattered areas of concern, but is overall significantly better than last year. Last year at this time the ECB was sufficient to surplus in soil moisture, but this year most of the ECB is below normal with notable concerns for W. IL and MO.
Ukraine’s grain union projects their 2024 wheat crop will be the smallest in 12 years at 20 MMT. That’s down about 14.5% from last year, with constraints on land area and labor.
May 24 CBOT Wheat closed at $5.44 1/4, down 3 1/4 cents,
Jul 24 CBOT Wheat closed at $5.58 1/4, down 2 1/2 cents,
May 24 KCBT Wheat closed at $5.87 1/2, down 9 3/4 cents,
Jul 24 KCBT Wheat closed at $5.79 1/2, down 8 cents,
May 24 MGEX Wheat closed at $6.63 1/2, down 8 1/2 cents,
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