Chicago Board of Trade wheat futures closed lower on Thursday for the fourth time in five sessions, pressured by an accelerating US winter crop harvest and by position squaring ahead of US government crop reports due on Friday. CBOT September soft red winter wheat settled down 5 cents at $4.83-1/2 per bushel.
K.C. September hard red winter wheat ended down 6-1/4 cents at $4.72 a bushel, the lowest in five months. MGEX September spring wheat fell to a contract low of $5.35-3/4 a bushel and ended down 3-3/4 cents at $5.37-1/2 per bushel. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is scheduled to release its US acreage and quarterly stocks reports on Friday.
The market fell despite better-than-expected weekly export sales data. The USDA reported export sales of US wheat in the latest week at 563,700 tonnes, topping a range of trade expectations for 250,000 to 500,000 tonnes. Ahead of the USDA's acreage report on Friday, analysts surveyed by Reuters on average expect the government to reduce its estimates of US spring wheat and total wheat seedings from its March forecasts.
Friday is also first notice day for deliveries against CBOT July futures contracts. Analysts surveyed by Reuters expect deliveries on zero to 100 contracts.