CHICAGO: Chicago Board of Trade wheat futures dropped more than 4 percent on Monday in the market's steepest percentage decline in almost a year on fund and technical selling and harvest pressure, traders said.
Active fund selling on the first trading day of the new month and new quarter pressured futures.
CBOT September soft red winter wheat settled down 21 cents at $4.80-1/4 per bushel. The 4.2 percent drop was the steepest for the most-active contract since July 13, 2017.
K.C. September wheat ended down 17-3/4 cents at $4.70-3/4 a bushel. September spring wheat shed 9-3/4 cents to $5.27 a bushel.
The declines erased all of Friday's gains that stemmed from worries over a smaller French wheat crop.
Strategie Grains slashed its forecast for this year's French wheat harvest by more than 4 million tonnes to 33.2 million tonnes, according to traders. That was well below other market estimates and last year's harvest of 36.6 million tonnes.
The International Grains Council cut its forecast for 2018/19 global wheat by 5 million tonnes, to 737 million tonnes.
Russian wheat export prices rose slightly last week, analysts said.
The US Department of Agriculture is expected to report 76 percent of the US spring wheat crop is in good to excellent shape, down a point from a week ago. The agency is also expected to report the winter wheat harvest as 56 percent complete.
The CBOT reported one contract delivered against CBOT July wheat and 252 K.C. July wheat deliveries. The MGEX reported 362 July spring wheat deliveries.
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