Hard red winter wheat futures on the Kansas City Board of Trade settled mostly higher on Thursday on continued US harvest delays and bullish export data, traders said. The market closed 5 cents lower to 11-1/4 cents higher, with the July contract up 11-1/4 cents at $6.00-1/4, while September was up 4-3/4 cents at $6.07-1/4.
Trade was choppy as July ranged from $5.91 to $6.02 on the day. The nine-day relative strength index for July wheat at the close was 69, near the 70-and-above indicator for overbought conditions. FC Stone and Frontier each bought 800 September, Country Hedging bought 700 September and sold 2,000 September and 700 December, J.P. Morgan bought 300 September, UBS bought 400 September and sold 200 December, floor sources said.
Also, Man Financial spread 500 July/September from 9-3/4 to 11 cents. One KCBT trader said a mix of market news and anticipation of upcoming crop reports kept the market on edge. "A lot of people just want to be as close to home as possible," the trader said.
Traders were awaiting the US Agriculture Department's June plantings and quarterly stocks reports on Friday. The average estimate among analysts surveyed by Reuters for 2007 US all-wheat acreage was 60.382 million, up from USDA's March forecast for 60.303 million. Analysts pegged US wheat stocks on June 1 at 419 million bushels, below the 572 million of a year ago. The forecast was up from USDA's latest 2006/07 wheat ending stocks estimate of 417 million.
The US Department of Agriculture reported weekly export sales of US wheat at 622,700 tonnes, above trade estimates for 200,000 to 400,000 tonnes. Reminders of tightening global wheat supplies also added support Thursday. The International Grains Council cut its estimate for world wheat output in 2007/08 to 614 million tonnes, down 7 million from its May forecast. Also supportive was the wet weather that continued to disrupt the HRW wheat harvest in the southern Plains.