Wheat futures on the Chicago Board of Trade rose on Thursday as expectations for a drop in US wheat plantings for 2017 and strong weekly export sales prompted short-covering, traders said. CBOT December wheat settled up 6 cents at $4.03 per bushel after reaching $4.06, its highest in nearly a week and a level just below the contract's 50-day moving average.
K.C. December hard red winter wheat settled up 5-1/4 cents at $4.08-3/4 a bushel and MGEX December spring wheat ended up 9-1/4 cents at $5.27-3/4. Private analytics firm Informa Economics lowered its estimate of US winter wheat plantings for harvest in 2017 to 33.761 million acres, from 35.421 million previously, trade sources said. Informa projected US all-wheat plantings for 2017 at 47.265 million acres, they said, which if realized would be the fewest in US Department of Agriculture records dating to 1919. The USDA reported export sales of US wheat in the week to November 10 at 598,400 tonnes, at the high end of trade expectations for 400,000 to 600,000 tonnes. Rally capped by strength in the US dollar, which tends to make US grains less attractive to those holding other currencies.