Wheat futures on the Chicago Board of Trade rose on Monday, with the March contract touching a one-week high on short-covering and talk that Russia might curb grain exports, traders said. K.C. hard red winter wheat and MGEX spring wheat futures also closed higher.
Russia's Agriculture Ministry is considering toughening the grain export limits due to rising pork prices, Interfax news agency reported, citing a source at the ministry. Additional support stemmed from worries about cold weekend weather in parts of Russia, Ukraine and China that might have threatened winter wheat crops. A cold snap that hit Europe early this month damaged crops in the eastern part of the bloc and Ukraine, crop monitoring unit MARS said. Funds still hold a large net short position in wheat, leaving the market vulnerable to bouts of short-covering. The CFTC's supplemental Commitments of Traders report showed non-commercial traders trimmed their net short in CBOT wheat by 1,439 contracts in the week to January 19, to 111,328 lots. The USDA reported export inspections of US wheat in the latest week at 187,903 tonnes, compared with 340,842 tonnes a week earlier.
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