US Plains hard red winter wheat basis values were mostly steady on Thursday, with some merchants posting 50 cents price protection against an expected steep drop in futures prices. Kansas City Board of Trade HRW wheat futures fell 52 cents overnight after the KCBT March wheat ended up 79-3/4 at $13.37 on Wednesday.
KCBT March wheat posted a new contract high of $13.84-3/4 on Wednesday. The May contract ended up 43 cents at $13.08 after setting a record high for the exchange at $13.95. Traders were expecting KCBT futures to open 25 to 50 cents lower Thursday. USDA reported Thursday that net weekly export sales of US wheat totalled 308,600 tonnes for the current marketing year. There were 20,000 tonnes for delivery in 2008/09,
The market was buzzing over news that MF Global announced a $141.5 million bad-debt provision. The firm said an MF Global representative, trading in the wheat futures market in his personal account, substantially exceeded his authorised trading limit. Turkey bought 100,000 tonnes of milling wheat, likely from Kazakhstan, Russia, Hungary and Romania, while Japan bought 10,500 tonnes of wheat from Canada.