Chicago Board of Trade wheat futures rallied to 2-1/2 week highs early on Wednesday on aggressive fund buying amid Egypt's purchase of 120,000 tonnes of US wheat and a World Food Program award of wheat to Iraq, traders said.
At 10:56 am CST (1656 GMT), CBOT wheat was up 4 to 13-3/4 cents per bushel, with May up 13-3/4 at $3.85-3/4.
Traders estimated that commodity fund purchases totalled roughly 5,000 lots during the first hour of trading and demand was broad-based.
Egypt purchased 120,000 tonnes of US wheat, including 60,000 tonnes of soft white and 60,000 tonnes of soft red winter wheat, and the Rome-based United Nations WFP purchased 270,000 tonnes of wheat for Iraq following a tender for 450,000 tonnes issued two weeks ago.
The award included 160,000 tonnes of US hard red winter wheat and 110,000 tonnes of Argentine hard milling wheat.
Technical support in the May contract was at $3.65-1/2 and resistance at $3.74-1/2 was broken touching off buy-stops and driving the contract to a session high of $3.86-1/2.
The nine-day relative strength index (RSI) for May stood at 52 prior to the open on Wednesday. Chartists view an RSI of 30 or less as an oversold market and 70 or more as an overbought market.