US Plains hard red winter wheat basis bids held steady Wednesday, with the sellers sidelined by declining futures prices and demand light, merchants said. It's dead, there is nothing going on. The price of corn, the price of wheat, everything is down so nothing is moving.
There isn't even that much fertiliser moving. It's just really quiet, said an Oklahoma merchant. Protein premiums for railcar wheat to and through Kansas City were unchanged as well, wheat traders said. Weather in the country was turning warmer and the new crop continued to look good throughout the Plains states, wheat observers said.
Wheat futures remained volatile, turning down sharply Tuesday at the Kansas City Board of Trade after a late rebound on Monday. More losses were expected Wednesday, traders said. KCBT May wheat futures ended down 6-3/4 cents at $5.01-1/4 per bushel Tuesday, with new-crop July down 8-1/4 cents at $5.03-3/4.
In world wheat news, India was expecting a bumper crop of around 73.5 million tonnes of wheat this year due to good weather, government officials said Wednesday. The forecast is at least one million tonnes more than previous estimates, and up sharply from 2006's output of 69.4 million tonnes. On the export front, a group of South Korean flour millers bought 23,600 tonnes of US No 1 wheat for shipment between March 25 and April 25.