Spring wheat futures at the Minneapolis Grain Exchange settled mostly lower on Monday, following the weak trend set in the Chicago and Kansas City wheat markets amid outlooks for rain in the US Plains, traders said.
Bearish export news from Iraq also weighed on wheat futures at all three exchanges. MGE March wheat settled up 1 cent at $4.22 per bushel in thin trade, while most-active May was down 5-3/4 at $4.23.
Volume was light, estimated by the exchange at 3,420 contracts, down from 3,600 on Friday. Forecasts called for showers in the dry areas of the US Plains hard red winter wheat belt over the next 10 days, although rain amounts were questionable.
Drought has been stressing the Plains HRW crop. News that the United States would miss out on most of a large wheat sale to Iraq also weighed on the market. Iraq on Sunday said it had signed contracts to buy 500,000 tonnes of wheat from Canada, 350,000 tonnes from Australia and only 150,000 tonnes from US firms.
On Monday, Iraq trade ministry sources said Iraq would buy another 500,000 tonnes of wheat from Canada and Australia firms to complete a 1.5 million-tonne tender issued in January. Meanwhile, Australia's AWB Ltd, a key US competitor for global wheat business, said it sold almost 1.5 million tonnes of wheat in major new deals to India, Yemen, Kuwait and Iran.
The US Department of Agriculture reported weekly export inspections of US wheat at 15.3 million bushels, within a range of trade estimates for 13-18 million. There were no deliveries on the MGE March wheat contract for Monday.
On Friday's CFTC Commitments of Traders report showed that large speculators expanded their heavy net long position in MGE wheat for the week ended February 28.
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