Wheat futures at the Chicago Board of Trade closed higher on Thursday amid fund short-covering, supportive exports and on gains in the MGE spring wheat market, traders said.
CBOT wheat closed 6-3/4 to 7-1/2 cents per bushel higher, with December up 7 at $3.32-1/4 per bushel.
Volume was on the heavy side, estimated by the exchange at 47,227 futures, more than doubling Wednesday's total of 19,704. Options volume was estimated at 5,468.
Funds bought 6,000 to 7,000 contracts on the day, traders said.
"Funds have been short for a long time and they're covering. It was a pretty good technical close yesterday and the exports were supportive," a trader said.
Last Friday's CFTC commitments of traders report showed that as of September 13, large speculators were short 88,443 CBOT wheat futures and options combined, and long only 48,934 lots. The CFTC late Friday will release updated data based on positions as of September 20.
Wheat traders said there was some surprise at how large the wheat number was in the US Department of Agriculture's latest weekly export report.
The latest USDA numbers, released on Thursday, said export sales of US wheat last week totalled 805,700 tonnes, beating estimates for 400,000 to 600,000 tonnes.
Export activity overnight included Japan's purchase of 130,000 tonnes of wheat, with 85,000 tonnes coming from the United States. Traders in Singapore said South Korea set a tender to buy 20,000 tonnes of US wheat on Friday.
Export sources also pointed to a freight tender issued on Thursday that confirmed recent market talk that a tender is on the way for 65,000 tonnes of hard wheat for Jordan.
Weather was a mixed bag for wheat futures.
Hot and dry weather through Saturday will continue to deplete soil moisture reserves in the US Great Plains hard red winter wheat region, Meteorlogix weather said on Thursday. However, there is a chance the fallout from Hurricane Rita may bring showers into the Southern Plains on Sunday and Monday.
Comments
Comments are closed.