US wheat futures rose 1.2 percent on Thursday, supported by concerns that a recent cold snap in key growing areas damaged some of the developing crop, traders said. "The weather concerns are centred around hard wheat, and you've had a freeze event at the beginning of the week. The thing is, you don't see that damage right away," said Terry Linn of the Linnn Group, a Chicago brokerage. "You need to wait until the crop gets farther along to be able to tell."
Wheat also received support from better-than-expected export sales in a weekly US government report. Corn and soyabeans eased, with soya setting back on some mild profit taking after bigger-than-expected crush data sparked a rally that pushed prices to a nine-month high earlier in the week.
Corn prices fell through key support points on expectations that warming weather will allow farmers to pick up their pace of planting during the next week. Traders noted some end-of-week position squaring in all three commodities. The Chicago Board of Trade will be closed on Friday for the Good Friday holiday. Trading resumes on Sunday at 7 pm CDT (0000 GMT)
CBOT May soft red winter wheat was up 8-1/4 cents at $6.96-1/4 a bushel at 11:34 am CDT (1634 GMT). K.C. May hard red winter wheat, which tracks the crop in the US Plains, was up 10 cents at $7.64-1/2 a bushel. The US Agriculture Department said on Thursday morning that weekly export sales of wheat for the 2013/14 crop year were 438,000 tonnes, topping forecasts ranging from 50,000 to 250,000 tonnes.
CBOT wheat futures have risen 5.4 percent so far this week. CBOT soyabeans for May delivery shed 4-1/2 cents to $15.14-1/4 a bushel while May corn dipped 3-1/2 cents to $4.94 a bushel. For the week, soyabeans have risen 3.5 percent and were on track for their biggest weekly gain in nine weeks. Corn has fallen 0.9 percent during the week. "Soyabeans continue to be supported by the US crushing data that came out a few days ago, while the continuing strong export demand is also contributing," said Vanessa Tan, investment analyst at Phillip Futures in Singapore.
USDA said that old-crop soyabean export sales totalled 19,200 tonnes, within market expectations. Chinese buyers may default on a further 1.2 million tonnes of soyabeans worth about $900 million being shipped from the United States and South America, to avoid incurring huge losses in a depressed local market, the country's top soya buyer said.
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