Hard red winter (HRW) wheat spot basis bids were mainly unchanged on Thursday in the southern US Plains, but edged lower at the Texas Gulf track, said merchants. Bids at the Gulf pulled back, partly because protein premiums came down from where they were last week, a merchant said.
The track basis at the US Gulf export terminal dropped by 5 cents per bushel from Wednesday to 225 cents above the K.C. March HRW wheat futures contract. Late-Wednesday's protein premiums for wheat delivered by railcar to or through Kansas City were steady.
The Chicago Board of Trade K.C. March HRW wheat futures contract on Thursday at 11:15 am CST (1715 GMT) were up 2-1/4 cents at $4.18-1/2 per bushel, with support from short-covering and Thursday morning's bullish weekly export results. The US Department of Agriculture on Thursday reported export sales of US wheat for the week ended Dec. 7 at 598,400 tonnes (old and new crop years combined), which eclipsed the high end of the range of trade estimates.