Wheat futures on the Chicago Board of Trade closed mixed on Thursday as the market consolidated after a technical collapse on Wednesday that pushed front-month July below $4, traders said.
Prices opened lower on follow-through selling but turned choppy by midsession.
"These markets are just catching their breath. People are waiting for more verification on yield reports, as far as being able to quantify them against expectations," Prudential Financial grains analyst Shawn McCambridge said, referring to the early harvest of the US hard red winter wheat crop.
CBOT July wheat settled 1-1/2 cents lower at $3.92 per bushel and September was unchanged at $4.08. Deferred months were up 1-3/4 cents to down 4.
Funds were about even on the day after buying the market early and selling late, traders said.
Spreading was a feature as traders rolled long July positions forward. That helped boost volume to an estimated 63,955 futures and 11,094 options. The CBOT said futures volume on Wednesday hit an all-time high of 157,446 contracts.
Traders were puzzling over a hefty increase in wheat open interest reported by the CBOT after Wednesday's close.
The CBOT said open interest rose by nearly 8,800 contracts to reach a record 546,844 lots, even though traders said funds sold about 10,000 wheat contracts on Wednesday as futures plunged.
The data implied the addition of new short positions.
"People are getting more a little more confident that they can be aggressive on the short side," McCambridge said.
"Even though we're still fixated on production potential, I think there are starting to be increased concerns about the lack of demand for soft red winter wheat," he said.
Cash bids for soft red winter wheat remain weak as the start of Midwest harvest nears. However, one river dealer boosted his bid 10-1/2 cents late Wednesday in response to the drop in CBOT wheat futures.
Concerns about the size of the drought-hit US hard red winter wheat crop underpinned the market. Crop weather in the Plains HRW belt improved with rains this week, but the moisture arrived too late to boost production prospects.
Private forecaster Meteorlogix said 0.25 to 1.00 inch of rain fell Wednesday over Kansas, Colorado and northern Oklahoma, with lighter amounts in southern Nebraska.
"The scattered showers will ease stress on some of the filling wheat crop in the north, but it's too late to help most of the crop,"ght. Iraq is still sitting on the bids it received May 9 in a tender to buy 1.5 million tonnes of wheat, and traders were waiting to see if India would issue another tender to buy wheat.
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