Wheat futures on the Chicago Board of Trade drifted lower early on Monday on technical selling, with weakness in outside commodity markets, including crude oil and copper, lending pressure, traders said. CBOT May wheat settled down 1 cent at $4.74-3/4 a bushel, retreating after briefly trading above its 100-day moving average near $4.78 in early moves. Additional pressure from expectations that the US Department of Agriculture's first weekly national crop progress report of 2016, due later on Monday, would show relatively strong winter wheat condition ratings.
K.C. hard red winter wheat also closed lower while MGEX spring wheat futures ended narrowly mixed. The USDA reported export inspections of US wheat in the latest week at 318,348 tonnes, in line with trade expectations. The government has projected that US wheat exports for the 2015/16 marketing year will fall to a 44-year low. The supplement to the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission's weekly commitments report on Friday showed large speculators trimmed their big net short position in CBOT wheat by 6,250 contracts in the week to March 29, to 121,228 contracts. European wheat prices rose on concerns about crops in east Europe, but prospects for large supplies from other regions continued to weigh on sentiment.