Chicago Board of Trade wheat futures closed higher on Thursday, buoyed by spillover strength from corn and soyabeans, while Minneapolis Grain Exchange spring wheat futures tumbled on expectations for a jump in US spring wheat acres in 2018. CBOT May wheat settled up 5-1/2 cents at $4.51 per bushel. K.C. May hard red winter wheat ended up 6-1/4 cents at $4.67-1/4 a bushel.
MGEX May spring wheat ended down 11 cents at $5.78-1/2 after dipping to $5.75, the lowest spot price on a continuous chart since June 2017. The US Department of Agriculture projected US total wheat plantings for harvest in 2018 at 47.339 million acres, up 3 percent from a year earlier. The USDA projected plantings of spring wheat other than durum at 12.6 million acres, topping a range of trade expectations and up from 11.0 million seeded in 2017.
The USDA also reported US March 1 wheat stocks at 1.494 billion bushels, roughly in line with trade expectations. Egypt's state grain buyer, the General Authority for Supply Commodities, bought 475,000 tonnes of wheat in a tender, including 355,000 tonnes of Russian origin and 120,000 tonnes of Romanian. The USDA reported export sales of US wheat in the latest week at 475,600 tonnes (old and new crop years combined), in line with trade expectations for 250,000 to 650,000 tonnes.