Sprthe Minneapolis Grain Exchange closed lower on Thursday as late declines in Chicago corn and wheat futures sparked profit-taking, traders said.
Minneapolis December spring wheat ended down 13-1/4 cents, or 2.6 percent, at $5.01 per bushel. March was down 11-1/4 cents at $5.17, with back months through 2007 down 1-1/2 to 12-1/2 cents.
Small sell-stops were hit late in the day, pushing prices to session lows. Funds were small net sellers of about 400 contracts, traders said. Volume was estimated by the Minneapolis exchange at 8,252 contracts, up from 7,253 on Wednesday.
The December-March spread traded at a carry of 14-1/2 to 15 cents, with Man Financial spreading at least 300 March/Dec, traders said. CBOT December wheat settled at $4.88 a bushel, down 16 cents or 3.2 percent. CBOT December corn closed down 7-3/4 cents, or 2.2 percent, at $3.50 a bushel, spending the session well below Wednesday's contract high of $3.67, the highest spot corn price in 10 years.
Corn had been earmarked ahead of the open to support wheat prices after the US Department of Agriculture cut its US corn crop estimate to 10.745 billion bushels, near the low end of trade estimates. But the corn market was unable to sustain any rallies and tumbled late in the day.
There was little supportive news for wheat in the USDA's November crop reports. The government left its US wheat ending stocks estimate unchanged at 418 million bushels, below the average trade guess of 424 million.
USDA trimmed its forecast of world 2006/07 wheat ending stocks to 118.8 million tonnes from its October figure of 119.3 million, already a 25-year low. However, the agency upped its world wheat production figure to 586.8 million tonnes. The USDA reported export sales of US wheat last week at 573,000 tonnes, within the range of trade estimates for 400,000 to 600,000 tonnes.
Wheat futures had background support from news that Ukraine was considering extending grain export quotas for the entire 2006/07 crop year. Traders in Ukraine said the quotas had effectively stopped all grain exports for more than a week. Meanwhile, Ukraine's agriculture minister said farmers planted 14 percent more land to winter wheat for the 2007 harvest.