Short-covering boosts US wheat after early drop

CHICAGO: US wheat futures closed higher on Monday as investors covered short positions after prices dropped early in the session, traders said.

* At the Chicago Board of Trade, deferred wheat contracts outgained the front-month March.

* Speculators raised their net short position in wheat to a record high as of February 21, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's weekly commitments of traders report said on Friday.

* Crop-friendly snowfall and moisture fell over the weekend and more snow is expected this week in the dry areas of the US Northern Plains, raising prospects for spring wheat production, said John Dee, meteorologist for Global Weather Monitoring.

* US Agriculture Department said on Monday that weekly export inspections of wheat were 9.375 million bushels, below expectations for 18 to 22 million and. A week ago, wheat export inspections were 22.15 million a week ago.

* European Union forecast 2012/13 wheat production in the 27-nation bloc at 131.9 million tones, up 2.5 percent from 2011/12. ?Reuters