CHICAGO: US wheat futures rose for the third straight day on Monday as investors covered short positions, traders said.
* Traders also noted some position squaring ahead of the US Agriculture Department's prospective plantings report on Friday.
* The benchmark CBOT May soft red winter wheat contract ended up 1 percent and closed above its 40-day moving average for the first time since March 16.
* The CBOT wheat closed well below its intraday high as traders locked in profits after prices hit a one-week top of $6.70-1/2 during the session.
* Drier and continued unseasonably warm weather expected in the US Plains hard red winter wheat region this week, said John Dee, meteorologist for Global Weather Monitoring. Conditions remain favorable for developing wheat crop.
* USDA's weekly export inspections of wheat on Monday were 15.358 million bushels, well below forecasts for 24 million to 27 million. A week ago, export inspections of wheat were 21.223 million.
* Analysts expect the USDA planting report to show that US farmers plan to plant 13.313 million acres of spring wheat other than durum, according to the average estimate of analysts surveyed by Reuters. A year ago, spring wheat acreage was 12.394 million.
* Large speculators cut their net short position in CBOT wheat by 2.6 percent to 80,310 contracts, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's weekly commitments of traders report showed late on Friday.
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