MGE wheat moves up

Spring wheat futures on the Minneapolis Grain Exchange closed higher on Tuesday, with spot December reaching a new record top on supportive export news and spillover from the Chicago and Kansas City markets, traders said. All three markets were supported by news that Argentina was extending a temporary suspension of its wheat exports while it assessed freeze damage.
Also, Russia was expected to propose a wheat export ban in January, an official with the Russian grain union said. Both moves could boost demand for US wheat. "The Argentina and Russia stories this helped underpin the market here," a Minneapolis trader said. Minneapolis December spring wheat settled up 18 cents at $9.78 per bushel after reaching $9.80, the all-time highest price for any spring wheat contract.
December is in its delivery period, and open interest in the contract was down to 1,731 lots ahead of the open. There were no deliveries against the contract for Tuesday. Most-active March wheat ended up 17-1/4 cents at $9.51-1/4, with back months up 5 to 19 cents. Contract highs were hit in new-crop September, December 2008 and March 2009.
Volume was estimated by the MGE at 6,018 futures, down from 6,728 lots on Monday. The December/March spread traded at an inverse of 26 to 28 cents, and March/May traded at an inverse of 24-1/2 to 26 cents, traders said.
Signs of fresh export demand helped support the market. Jordan bought 50,000 tonnes of wheat from Syria, South Korea bought 23,000 tonnes from the United States, and Turkey will tender on Thursday for 200,000 tonnes of optional-origin soft wheat.
India plans to launch an import tender on December 10 for 350,000 tonnes of wheat. And Japan said it would seek 195,000 tonnes of Canadian Australian and US wheat at its regular weekly tender on Thursday.
On a bearish note, the Australian government's ABARE raised its wheat crop estimate to 12.7 million tonnes, from 12.1 million. Additionally, the parched southern US Plains hard red winter wheat has a better chance of seeing rain by the weekend and next week, a DTN Meteorlogix forecaster said.