March wheat was 2 3/4 cents lower overnight. The dollar was substantially lower early in the overnight session, but it trimmed its losses into this morning. Overnight action in the wheat market continued the erosion that has been taking place since the recent high on December 7th. March wheat pushed below yesterday’s low late in the overnight session after finding little support from an earlier break in the dollar. Traders said that selling by funds and spreaders has helped to push the market lower over the recent downtrend with yesterday’s upgrade in the Argentine wheat crop, and this week’s drier conditions in eastern Australia, adding to the negative tone. China’s Ministry of Agriculture reported today that this year’s winter wheat acreage is up 0.3% from last year at 22.67 million hectares. He also noted that some major producing areas have been experiencing a drought since late October. The Buenos Aires Grains Exchange pegged the wheat crop at 13.5 million tonnes yesterday, up 4% from their previous estimate. Brazil’s wheat association, Abitrigo, expects the country to import 5.5 to 6.0 million tonnes of wheat in 2011, about the same as this year. In the US, some light but welcome precipitation moved across the southern and SW Plains into this morning. The EU cleared 353,000 tonnes of wheat export licenses this week, and Japan is looking to buy 64,543 tonnes of wheat from Australia on next week’s regular tender. Moroccan officials report that wheat imports for the 6-month period ending November 30th were up 78% with soft wheat imports up more than fivefold. This week’s export sales for wheat were better than expected at 899,300 tonnes for the current marketing year and 74,000 for next year for a total of 973,300. However, soft red winter wheat sales remained modest at 47,300 tonnes for old crop and 45,000 tonnes for new crop. As of December 9th, cumulative all-wheat sales stand at 72.4% of the USDA forecast for 2010/2011 exactly in line with the 5-year average of 72.4%. In addition to the weekly sales, the USDA announced a sale of 150,000 tonnes of US hard red winter wheat to Jordan yesterday

Bron: CME