Chicago Board of Trade wheat futures closed lower on Thursday on speculative profit taking, with extra pressure coming from the European Union's announcement it opened tenders to sell almost 700,000 tonnes of wheat in its domestic markets, grain sources said.
"It's an indication that they're starting to loosen up their grip on these stocks," said Shawn McCambridge, an analyst with Prudential Securities.
CBOT wheat closed 1 to 5-1/2 cents per bushel lower, with March down 5 at $3.87. July was down 3-1/4 at $3.86-1/2.
Volume was light estimated at 13,417 futures and 3,295 options.
The EU on Thursday agreed to open tenders to sell 677,047 tonnes of wheat that had been held in intervention storage, with 227,000 tonnes from Sweden, 200,000 from France and the rest from Denmark, Germany and Belgium.
"It has been known they were going to do it, but from a psychological standpoint it is a little bearish," said Charlie Sernatinger, analyst for Chicago trade house O'Connor and Co.
"Looking at where it came from, it looks more bearish for hard red winter than for soft."
Also, the EU granted import licenses for 9,221 tonnes of low- and medium-quality soft wheat.
While disappointing supply/demand news weighed on the nearby old-crop contracts, new-crop July, while trading lower, gained 1-3/4 cents on the nearbys.
Traders said a cold snap poses a threat to parts of the US winter-wheat crop with special attention given to the hard red winter wheat crop grown in the US Great Plains.
That gave Kansas City Board of Trade HRW wheat a bigger boost than the soft red winter wheat contracts traded at the CBOT.
The HRW crop in western Kansas, eastern Colorado and in western Nebraska is in its winter dormant stage, but has virtually no snow cover.
The lack of insulating snow and the accompanying very dry soil are leaving the crop vulnerable to harm from cold weather.
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