SINGAPORE: Chicago wheat edged up on Friday but remained on track for its biggest weekly loss in half-a-year, trading near its lowest in 11 months as abundant global supply weighed on prices.
Soybean prices ticked higher, but concerns over the Sino-U.S. trade war capped gains.
The most-active wheat contract on the Chicago Board of Trade has lost 6.4 percent so far this week in what is set to be its biggest weekly decline since late August. On Thursday, the market dropped to its weakest since early April at $4.57-3/4 a bushel.
Wheat has come under pressure amid concerns about the prospects for U.S. exports due to stiff global competition.
"We have yet to see demand pick up for U.S. wheat," said a Singapore-based trader. "We were expecting to see higher demand for U.S. wheat from March onwards but looks like the Black Sea region has more to sell, especially Russia."
Russia, the world's top wheat exporter, still has a surplus of 4 million to 5 million tonnes of old-crop grain for export, a leading exporter of Black Sea grain cargoes said on Wednesday.
Soybean futures were on track to edge up 0.2 percent for the week, the second straight weekly gain. Corn is set to fall around 1 percent, after closing marginally higher over the last two weeks.
U.S. soybean export sales in the week ended Feb. 21 were 2.196 million tonnes, corn sales totalled 1.360 million tones, and wheat sales totalled 537,300 tonnes.
Investors are waiting for additional details on a U.S.-China trade deal. U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday warned he could walk away from a trade deal with China if it were not good enough, even as his economic advisers touted "fantastic"progress towards an agreement to end a dispute with the Asian country.
Commodity funds were net sellers of CBOT corn, wheat, soybean and soymeal futures contracts on Thursday, traders said.
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