US hard red winter wheat spot basis bids were mostly steady on Wednesday, with the market reported lacklustre. Weak nearby demand was keeping Gulf track bids unposted for July, with August delivery set at 50 cents over for first-half and 55 cents over for the last half of August.
Meanwhile, a bit of competition sparked a firmer basis in Hutchinson, Kansas, but otherwise the market was steady. Futures prices at the Kansas City Board of Trade continued to show volatility, ending with September wheat down 1/2 cent at $4.90-1/4 and the December down 1/2 cent at $5.04-1/2 on Tuesday.
Futures prices were expected to see further declines on Wednesday, led by corn and soybean futures amid better crop weather in the US Midwest. In world wheat news, global wheat output was expected to drop 1.5 percent from 2005 to about 615 million tonnes this year, while remaining above the five-year average, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said in a report published on Wednesday.
Also, Europe's wheat crop was being threatened by scorching temperatures and violent storms just days before the harvest.
On the export front, Japan's Agriculture Ministry was planning to hold an import tender on July 26 for 30,000 tonnes of feed wheat, a ministry official said on Wednesday.