Wheat futures on the Chicago Board of Trade ended higher on Thursday for a third straight session amid technical buying after recently touching contract lows, traders said. Commodity funds hold a massive net short position in CBOT wheat, leaving the market vulnerable to bouts of short-covering. CBOT March wheat settled up 5-3/4 cents at $4.68-1/2 per bushel after dipping to $4.56-1/4, just above its contract low of $4.56, established on Monday.
K.C. hard red winter wheat and MGEX spring wheat futures also closed higher but with more modest advances. The wheat markets shrugged off early weakness tied to global macroeconomic worries after a 7 percent drop in Chinese equity markets overnight.
Some traders may be liquidating short positions in CBOT wheat ahead of several USDA supply/demand reports scheduled for release on January 12, including quarterly US grain stocks and US winter wheat plantings. Fundamental news was bearish. USDA reported export sales of US wheat in the week to December 31 at 76,500 tonnes, a marketing year low that fell below trade expectations for 200,000 to 400,000 tonnes. The Buenos Aires Grains Exchange raised its forecast of Argentina's 2015-16 wheat output to 10.1 million tonnes in a weekly report, from 9.5 million previously.
Comments
Comments are closed.