Wheat futures at the Chicago Board of Trade closed lower on Monday amid bearish exports and on a setback from the recent fund-related rally, traders said. CBOT wheat closed 4 to 6 cents per bushel lower. March was down 5-3/4 at $3.23-1/4 per bushel. May was down 4-3/4 at $3.32-1/4. The CBOT estimated volume at 27,492 futures and 6,284 options. Traders said a sharp fall in soybeans contributed pressure on wheat but the lack of large volume export sales of US wheat continues to act as a solid anchor for wheat futures prices and there are no signs of a pickup in exports soon.
"There were two problems in wheat today. Number one, Egypt's purchase of French wheat, and also it doesn't look like China is going to be needing any wheat," said Dale Gustafson, analyst for Citigroup.
Egypt over the weekend bought 60,000 tonnes of wheat from France and none from the United States. Also over the weekend, China's grain chief said the country would import little wheat this year because good harvests have left big stocks.
The USDA on Monday said only 11.3 million bushels of wheat were inspected for export last week. That is below estimates for 22.0 million to 24.0 million bushels.
Deliveries of wheat Monday on the March contract were light at 165 lots. The Bunge house account issued 107 lots and an FC Stone customer posted 58 lots. The key stoppers were a Century customer taking 98 lots and a Kottke customer stopped 44 lots. Registrations with the CBOT unchanged at 668 lots.
Cash basis bids for SRW in the Midwest were mostly steady and farmer selling was slow.
Friday's CFTC commitments of traders report showed large speculators shifted to a net long position during the week ended Tuesday, March 1. For futures, funds were long 46,598 contracts, up 6,793 from the previous week and short 41,762, down 13,260.
Technical support in the May contract at $3.33 per bushel was broken, driving the contract to a session low of $3.30-1/4. Resistance was at $3.46-1/2. The nine-day relative strength index for May at the close of trade on Friday stood at 67. Technical traders view an RSI of 70 or more as an overbought market and 30 or less as an oversold market.