| December wheat was 1 1/4 cents higher overnight. The dollar was narrowly mixed. Deliveries against the September futures contract were 2,441 contracts with the total for the delivery period now at 22,868. The week started with two days of lower prices in December wheat followed by stable to slightly higher levels overnight. Traders said that yesterday’s persistent losses in wheat came on selling by funds amid disappointment that the US was totally shut out of the two latest big sales into the North African wheat import market. Egypt bought 240,000 tonnes of wheat from France on a tender that was announced the previous day. The US had been the sole seller on a similar sized transaction about one week earlier. France slightly increased its estimate of this year’s soft wheat crop at the start of the week which helped to bring lower EU wheat prices, and this may have locked in the Egyptian sale. Traders also announced yesterday that Algeria may have bought a total of 600,000 tonnes of French soft wheat. The USDA did announce a sale of 109,000 tonnes of hard red winter wheat to an unknown destination yesterday morning. Adding to the negative tone yesterday was rain in the forecast for Russia which is expected to help advance planting of winter grain crops along with news from Stats Canada that July 31st wheat stocks came in well above expectations at 7.82 million tonnes, a four-year high. Brazil estimated its 2010 wheat crop at 5.39 million tonnes this morning versus an estimate of 5.34 million in August. Brazil is the world’s second largest wheat importer after Egypt. Traders are expecting another downward revision in world wheat production on tomorrow’s reports from the USDA. The USDA is also expected to lower US all-wheat ending stocks for 2010/11 to near 915 million bushels, down 4% from August. Production in both the EU and Russia are expected to be lowered again, but Canada could be revised higher after yesterday’s upward revision in stocks by Stats Canada. There could also be a minor reduction in the USDA’s estimate for Argentina. Bangladesh has reissued a tender for 50,000 tonnes of wheat. Jordan and Algeria are also tendering for wheat. Japan bought 129,482 million tonnes of wheat on its regularly scheduled weekly tender.
Bron:CME