Soft red winter wheat futures at the Chicago Board of Trade turned lower by midsession on Friday as bearish fundamentals, including good US crop weather, triggered light speculative selling, traders said.
Conditions in the southern US Plains are ideal, with rainfall and warm temperatures boosting prospects for hard red winter wheat, the largest US wheat class. Also bearish was a lack of fresh export business. As of 11:02 am CDT (1602 GMT), May was down 1-1/4 cents at $4.65-3/4 per bushel after meeting resistance around its 200-day moving average of $4.68-1/2.
July was down 1-1/2 at $4.79 and December was down 2 at $5.02. Tenco Inc, Man Financial and UBS Warburg each sold 200-300 May contracts, traders said. Commercial FC Stone bought 400 May. April options expire on Friday, and traders noted sizeable open interest in options at the $4.60 strike.
Declines in nearby corn futures weighed on wheat. Front-month May corn was down 1 cent at $4.08-1/2 as old-crop months lost ground to new-crop corn contracts for deferred delivery.