March wheat was 3 3/4 cents lower overnight. The dollar was moderately lower. The market pushed modestly lower overnight despite a lower dollar and continued solid activity in the world export market. Traders in Europe said today that Iraq has bought 250,000 tonnes of wheat from the US and Australia. It is thought that 100,000 tonnes were US hard red winter wheat with the remainder being Australian wheat. The pace of the wheat harvest continues to pick up in eastern Australia amid drier weather, but analysts indicate that the overall harvest could be delayed by a month. Sources in Pakistan indicate that the country may see a resumption of wheat exports in January after the government lifted its ban on wheat exports earlier this month. Pakistan is the third largest wheat producer in Asia after China and India. The German government’s statistics office reports that this year’s planted area for winter wheat stands at 3.262 million hectares, about unchanged from last year. Ample snow cover in Germany is thought to be beneficial amid unseasonably cold weather that has been seen in recent days and weeks. The USDA will issue its latest Export Sales report tomorrow. Sales need to average 377,700 tonnes each week to reach the USDA’s current export projection. Last week’s sales jumped to 899,300 tonnes for the 2010/11 crop year with buying interest continuing to focus on hard red winter wheat. In the meantime, dry weather persists in the hard red winter wheat belt in the US. The Pacific storms that have lashed Southern California have moved into western Colorado and they seem to be skipping to the north of the driest areas of the central and southern Plains. An improved harvest outlook in Australia this week along with reports that the quality of harvested wheat in some of the recently rainy areas has been better than expected helped to pressure the market yesterday. Hot and mostly dry weather has also been a boon to the wheat harvest in Argentina in recent weeks, and that was borne out by the recent increase in the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange’s estimate of the size of their wheat crop.

Bron: CME