Hard red winter wheat futures on the Kansas City Board of Trade ended lower on Monday as a follower to weak outside markets amid a mix of economic and crop concerns. The KCBT March contract settled down 8 cents, or 1.3 percent, at $5.93, and May settled off 7-3/4 cents at $6.04-1/2. Traders said economic woes were keeping some money sidelined.
Weak demand was also a bearish factor. USDA said Monday that weekly export inspections of US wheat totalled 11.950 million bushels. Trade expectations were for 12 million to 18 million bushels. Detrimental dry conditions in the US Southern Plains wheat-growing region helped underpin prices. Pakistan's state trading agency TCP has received a best offer of $231.55 a tonne, cost and freight, in its tender for 150,000 tonnes of any-origin wheat, and could buy as much as 250,000 tonnes.
Pakistan has a separate tender underway to purchase 250,000 tonnes of US wheat with the bidding deadline set February 7. In other wheat news, Morocco's wheat imports rose to 4 million tonnes last year, up 8.1 percent from the previous year, with almost half of the purchases coming from France, official figures showed on Monday. Imports of Ukrainian feed wheat to Spain's leading grain port were expected to increase in February. Drought in northern China has spread into the country's key wheat area.
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