Soft red winter wheat futures on the Chicago Board of Trade were sharply lower at midsession on Tuesday as traders booked profits after Monday's rally to two-month highs, brokers said. The declines came in spite of bullish data in the US Department of Agriculture's December crop report, including a drop in projected US wheat ending stocks to a 60-year low.
The wheat market opened higher but turned lower shortly after the bell. By 10:45 am CST (1645 GMT), the bellwether March wheat contract was down 11-1/2 cents at $9.18 per bushel. Spot December, which is in delivery and expires on Friday, was down 13 cents at $8.96. In its December report, USDA cut its estimate of US wheat ending stocks for the 2007/08 marketing year to 280 million bushels, from 312 million in November. The figure was below an average of analysts' estimates for 297 million.
Export business remains active, with Pakistan over the weekend buying 190,000 tonnes of optional-origin wheat, India tendering for a maximum of 550,000 tonnes and Japan tendering for 200,000 tonnes this week.
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