Chicago Board of Trade wheat futures closed weak on Thursday on good crop weather in the US and improved crop weather in Europe. Some positioning was noted ahead of the long holiday weekend. CBOT markets will be closed Good Friday. Position-squaring was noted ahead of the release on Tuesday of USDA's April supply/demand and crop production reports.
An average of analysts' estimates pegged the 2011/12 US wheat ending stocks at 792 million bushels, below the forecast in March for 825 million bushels. Egypt's GASC bought 115,000 tonnes of wheat for May 21-31 shipment and the purchase included 60,000 tonnes of US soft red winter wheat.
Private exporters reported the sale of 138,900 tonnes of US wheat to unknown destinations for delivery in the new marketing year, the US Department of Agriculture said. USDA's weekly export sales report showed US export sales of wheat last week at 511,700 tonnes, above estimates for 300,000 to 500,000 tonnes.
Nearly ideal crop weather continues in the US Plains hard red winter wheat region. "The Plains have had showers this week and there will be more rain Wednesday and Thursday next week so they're in pretty good shape," said John Dee, meteorologist for Global Weather Monitoring. May is below all key moving averages with first major resistance at the 100-day ma of $6.44-3/4. The nine-day RSI was at 46.