Soft red winter wheat futures at the Chicago Board of Trade were higher at midsession on Wednesday in a light bounce after Tuesday's drop to 3-1/2 week lows, traders said.
Values tumbled on Tuesday on improved US winter wheat condition ratings and spillover from a plunge in corn after a pickup in the US corn planting pace.
As of 11:02 am CDT (1602 GMT), May wheat was up 3-1/2 cents at $4.72-1/2 per bushel, with most-active July up 1-1/2 at $4.82-1/2 and December up 1/2 at $5.03-1/2.
Fimat USA, Rosenthal Collins and Rand Financial each bought 200 July contracts, traders said. News that Egypt bought 115,000 tonnes of US soft red winter wheat as part of a 235,000-tonne purchase was supportive. The rest of the deal involved Russian and/or Kazakh wheat.
A drawdown in Canadian wheat stocks was also bullish. Statistics Canada reported Canada's 2007 wheat stocks at 15.831 million tonnes as of March 31, down 15 percent from last year's 18.727 million. Statscan attributed the drop to a strong export program and higher domestic milling demand.
Traders were awaiting USDA's May 11 crop report, which will include the agency's first US and world wheat forecasts for the 2007/08 marketing year. The average analyst estimate for US 2007/08 wheat ending stocks was 482 million bushels.
The average trade estimate for US 2007 all-wheat production was 2.164 billion bushels, up from 1.812 billion in 2006. The average estimate for the US winter wheat crop was 1.590 billion bushels, up from 1.298 billion in 2006.
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