Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) wheat futures declined Friday on technical selling and some outlooks for beneficial rains in Russia, but the market still rose 2 percent for the week on worries about tightening global supplies. CBOT December soft red winter wheat settled down 2-1/4 cents Friday at $5.21-3/4 per bushel. For the week, the contract rose 10-1/4 cents or about 2 percent, its biggest weekly advance in the last seven weeks.
K.C. December hard red winter wheat ended Friday down 1-3/4 cents at $5.25-1/4 a bushel while MGEX December spring wheat fell 6 cents to $5.82-1/2. Russia's IKAR consultancy lowered its estimate of Russia's 2018 wheat crop to 69.2 million tonnes, from 69.6 million previously. Sovecon consultancy cut its estimate of Russia's 2018/2019 wheat exports to 33 million tonnes, from 33.9 million.
Australian suppliers have signed one of the country's first new-crop wheat export deals with a sale of 50,000 tonnes to Thailand, two trade sources said.