Chicago Board of Trade wheat futures closed lower on Thursday on technical selling and a stronger dollar, which tends to make US grains less competitive, traders said.
CBOT March soft red winter wheat settled down 3-1/4 cents at $5.44-1/4 per bushel.
K.C. March hard red winter wheat ended down 5 cents at $4.66 a bushel and MGEX March spring wheat fell 4-1/2 cents to settle at $5.26-3/4.
Futures shrugged off supportive weekly export data. The US Department of Agriculture reported export sales of US wheat in the week ended Feb. 6 at 687,100 tonnes (old and new crop years combined), at the high end of trade expectations.
Traders noted declines in world equity markets, which were on the defensive as a sharp rise in the death toll from the coronavirus in China stoked concern about fresh economic fallout from the outbreak.
French consultancy Strategie Grains lowered its forecast of 2020 EU soft wheat production to 138.6 million tonnes, from 139.8 million last month, reflecting seeding delays in parts of Western Europe.
The firm projected Russia's wheat crop at 82 million tonnes, however, and said EU wheat prices could be pressured by export competition this spring.
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