Spring wheat futures on the Minneapolis Grain Exchange closed mixed on Thursday as light commercial buying helped offset slipover pressure from declines in the Chicago and Kansas City markets, traders said.
"It's a commercial type of day. There is no fund presence," one Minneapolis trader said. Most-active MGE March wheat ended down 1/2 cent at $3.69-1/4 per bushel, with deferred down 1 to up 1/4.
Spot December, which expires on December 14, closed unchanged at $3.63. Volume was estimated by the exchange at 3,987 contracts, down from 4,163 on Wednesday. Prices retreated from strength tied to short covering ahead of the US Department of Agriculture's December crop report, due out on Friday at 7:30 am CST (1330 GMT).
The average trade estimate for 2005/06 US wheat ending stocks was 523 million bushels, slightly below USA's November forecast for 530 million. Some analysts expected the USDA to trim the US wheat stockpile to reflect increased exports, including recent sales to Iraq.
In its weekly export tally, the USDA reported sales of US wheat for last week at 451,400 tonnes, within the range of estimates for 350,000 to 500,000 tonnes. The total included 202,000 tonnes of hard red winter wheat to Iraq.
Export overnight-included Japan's purchase of 125,000 tonnes of wheat, with 45,000 tonnes from the United States. Also, South Korea is seeking 22,000 tonnes of US wheat. There were 157 deliveries against the MGE December contract for Thursday, with a customer of Prudential issuing 151 lots. The biggest stopper was a customer of Fimat USA, at 80 lots, while the house account of ADM Investor Services stopped 25.