Chicago Board of Trade wheat futures fell on Friday, pressured by bearish data in a monthly US Department of Agriculture supply/demand report and spillover weakness from corn, traders said. CBOT July soft red winter wheat settled down 4-3/4 cents at $4.24-3/4 per bushel after falling to $4.21-1/2, a contract low and the lowest price for a most-active wheat contract since January 2018.
For the week, the CBOT July contract fell 13-1/4 cents a bushel, or 3 percent, its fifth straight weekly decline. K.C. July hard red winter wheat on Friday fell 10-3/4 cents to $3.87 a bushel and MGEX July spring wheat fell 1/4 cent to $5.17. CBOT and K.C. wheat futures set across-the-board contract lows. CBOT corn futures fell to contract lows after the USDA projected larger-than-expected domestic supplies of corn, soybeans and wheat.
The USDA forecast 2019 US wheat production at 1.897 billion bushels, up slightly from the 1.884 million-bushel crop a year earlier but just under an average of analyst expectations. Underscoring strong global export competition, the USDA projected global 2019/20 wheat ending stocks at a record-large 293.01 million tonnes, above even the highest in a range of trade expectations. The USDA trimmed its projection of global 2018-19 wheat ending stocks to 274.98 million tonnes, from 275.61 million in April.