US MIDDAY: wheat futures weaker on spill-over selling

Wheat futures at the Chicago Board of Trade were weaker early Wednesday on spill-over selling from Tuesday, traders said.
CBOT wheat futures were down 3-1/4 to 4-1/2 cents a bushel, with the March contract down 3-1/4 at $3.77-1/4.
Early sellers included Rand Financial with 200 March, Carr Futures with 100 March and Fimat Futures with 100, traders said.
The old-crop months continued to gain on new-crop wheat as the spreads adjusted, traders said. Shrinking world stocks and fewer 2004 US winter wheat seedings have pushed CBOT new-crop prices to historically high levels for this time of year and the spreads were correcting, traders said. There were also growing concerns about the large amount of wheat on US books for the 2003/04 marketing year yet to be shipped by China.
Even so, some traders remain hopeful that China may soon buy more US wheat.