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Markets

US wheat futures inch up on technical buying: traders

Published Updated

CBOT May soft red winter wheat settled up 3 cents at $4.3-3/4 per bushel on Tuesday. The contract had fallen nearly 2pc a day earlier.

Kansas City hard red winter wheat futures plunged to their lowest since Dec. 2017, on a continuous basis in mid-day trading.

However, K.C. May hard red winter wheat ended the day up 2-3/4 cents at $4.14-1/2 a bushel on Tuesday, also on technical buying. MGEX May spring wheat closed up 2 cents at $5.11-1/4.

Traders said the fundamental problem, in the eyes of the market, is that wheat crop conditions are favorable - but export demand is still not strong for US wheat.

The USDA on Monday rated 62 percent of the US winter wheat crop in good to excellent condition, up from 60 percent a week earlier.

A year ago, the USDA rated just 31 percent of the crop as good to excellent. Weekly export loadings in yesterday's report showed a yearly high of 811,000 metric tons of inspections.

But one trader said there may be some interest brewing in the south as speculators are positioning on wheat prices being so low and talk about Texas feedlots looking into possible feed wheat purchases.

Copyright Reuters, 2019