CHICAGO: US wheat futures fell Friday, with the benchmark Chicago Board of Trade contract hitting a two-week low, on worries that global economic weakness could stunt worldwide demand and lower prices for wheat amid plentiful supplies, traders said.
* CBOT May wheat ended the week down 2.5 percent, its second straight down week. The benchmark contract has lost 5.8 percent during the past two weeks, its biggest two-week loss in three months.
* Friday's sell-off in wheat began after CBOT May ran into resistance at its 100-day moving average.
* China's economy grew an annual 8.1 percent in the January-March quarter, less than the 8.3 percent economists had forecast and a near a three-year low, raising investor concerns that a five-quarter long slide has not bottomed.
* Additional weakness in wheat stemmed from farmers and analysts saying that this week's cold snap caused little, if any, damage to the emerging spring wheat crop in the US Plains as well as the developing Midwest soft red winter wheat crop.
* Morocco's ONICL said on Friday it bought 180,000 tonnes of soft wheat of unspecified origin. was cutting demand for US wheat from overseas buyers.
* A Libyan state grain buying agency bought 30,000 tonnes of Russian-origin milling wheat, European traders said.
* Private importers in Iran bought 50,000 tonnes of feed wheat this week despite Western sanctions on the Islamic Republic, trade sources said.
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