Wheat futures on the Chicago Board of Trade fell 2 percent on Friday on technical selling and a lack of significant new export demand, traders said. Traders shrugged off a respectable number for wheat in the US Agriculture Department's weekly export sales report.
USDA said US wheat sales in the latest reporting period were 416,000 tonnes, above estimates for 250,000 to 400,000 tonnes. "We had decent export sales, at the top end of the range, and no cancellations. But it's still just normal-type business, and the market is looking for more," said Prudential Financial analyst Shawn McCambridge. "We need to feed this market bullish news in order to sustain any kind of upside momentum, and we just don't have that."
Concerns about frost damage to the Argentine wheat crop were easing, another bearish factor for wheat futures. Temperatures fell to sub-freezing levels this week in southern Buenos Aires province, a major crop area. The cold snap had helped lift the market on Thursday."We're still assessing the damage in Argentina, but we don't think there was much," a CBoT floor trader said.
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