US hard red winter wheat basis bids were unchanged on Monday as wheat sales remained light and storage tight, merchants said. Protein premiums for railcar wheat to and through Kansas City also remained flat. Merchants through Kansas and elsewhere in the Plains reported limited storage space, and were buying in-store wheat only. At the same time, farmers remained reluctant sellers amid low prices.
The Kansas City Board of Trade futures market saw a light bounce back on Friday after sharp losses earlier in the week, as the September contract closed up 1-3/4 cents on Friday, or 0.5 percent, at $3.36-1/2 per bushel.
But the market was expected to open 2-4 cents lower on Monday under harvest pressure and spillover pressure from soybean and corn futures.
Harvest in the Plains was winding down. US Wheat Associates said in its weekly harvest report on Friday that hot and dry weather was accelerating cutting in South Dakota and the harvest there was about 47 percent complete, ahead of last year's pace of 13 percent at this point. About 68 percent of the crop was rated good to excellent in South Dakota.
US Wheat said it has sampled about 73 percent of the total samples it will see this season and overall protein is running at 12.2 percent. Test weights are averaging 59.7 lb/bu (78.6 kg/hl) this year vs. 59.0 lb/bu (77.6 kg/hl) last year.
Overall, the crop is average, grading at No 2 HRW.
Comments
Comments are closed.