Spot basis bids for hard red winter (HRW) wheat in the US Plains production area were mostly steady Friday with limited country movement as intermittent rains continued to stall the harvest in many areas, merchants said.
Some cash merchants were reporting a firmer tone for domestic trade. The basis in Lincoln, Nebraska, was shown at 3 cents over the July wheat futures contract, up from the 12 cents under bid posted for the last week.
"That's what it's been taking to buy wheat so they just decided to post it," said a Nebraska merchant.
But the Gulf track market was showing a 2-cent decline as the basis backtracked to 46 over the July as more to-arrive offers were noted.
The protein scale for railcar wheat to and through Kansas City was 4 cents higher for 11.60 percent protein wheat through 12.20-pro wheat and 3 cents firmer for 12.40-pro wheat, but unchanged otherwise.
It was becoming hot and mostly dry in the region Friday morning, with some cutting expected by midday in central Kansas, merchants said. Rainfall this week had delayed harvesting in many areas, including northern Oklahoma where farmers are near wrapping up this year's harvest.
Meanwhile, Horizon Milling LLC is upgrading production capacity at its Wichita mill and will close its Wellington flour mill by May 2005, the company said this week.
The futures market at the Kansas City Board of Trade is closed Friday for the state funeral of former US President Ronald Reagan.
The market closed 6-1/2 to 8 cents lower on Thursday, with July at $3.76 per bushel, down 6-3/4 cents.
On the export front Friday, two South Korean flour millers jointly bought 20,500 tonnes of US No. 1 wheat from Cargill, traders said.
Comments
Comments are closed.