Wheat futures at the Chicago Board of Trade closed lower and fell to three-month lows on Friday amid technical fund selling and as the dollar rolled to 2005 highs, traders said. Traders said fund selling totalled 6,000 lots. CBOT wheat closed 3-1/2 to 6 cents per bushel lower. May expired Friday down 5 cents at $2.96-1/2 per bushel. July was down 6 at $3.02-3/4 per bushel, approaching its contract low of $3.02-1/4. Volume was moderate, estimated by the exchange at 38,725 futures and 8,960 options. Most of the pressure on wheat stemmed from follow-through technical selling after the market fell on Thursday amid the release of bearish wheat production and stocks numbers from the US Department of Agriculture.
Wheat also struggled against a strong dollar which may make another dent in export sales of US wheat.
Mild underpinning surfaced amid continued drier-than-desired crop weather in the far southern portion of the US Plains.

Copyright Reuters, 2005

Comments

Comments are closed.