Pre-Opening Wheat Market Report for 6/23/2010

December wheat was 2 cents higher overnight. The dollar index was mixed to lower.

Wheat continues to see improved export demand along with a return to normal harvest progress in the hard and soft red winter wheat belts in the US. Weather forecasts call for hot and mostly dry weather in most harvest areas into the weekend, particularly in the case of the hard red winter crop in the Plains.

Forecasts have some scattered rains in parts of the Midwest soft red winter belt over this stretch, but this is not expected to cause significant harvest delays there. Heavier rains in the Midwest are expected to be oriented to the extreme northern Midwest today and into the weekend. Spring grains weather in the former Soviet Union is mainly favorable with some hot and dry weather noted in the southern Urals and into Kazakhstan. Planting continues in Australia with some delays due to rain in the east.

Bangladesh is tendering for 50,000 tonnes of wheat and Iraq is tendering for 100,000 tonnes of wheat for October-November shipment. The USDA will release its latest Export Sales report tomorrow morning. Sales have picked up for non-US origins recently and last week’s US export sales surged to near 1 million tonnes. Sales need to average 380,600 tonnes each week to reach the USDA’s current export projection.

Traders in Europe reported yesterday that Algeria is tendering for 50,000 tonnes of wheat for August shipment. Traders in Europe also reported yesterday that this week’s big wheat sale to Saudi Arabia consisted of 880,000 tonnes from Germany and 110,000 from Canada.