December wheat was up 3 1/4 cents late in the overnight session. Outside market forces look slightly positive today with a firm tone for equity markets overnight. Trade focus is on Europe debt crisis developments. The wheat market continues to consolidate in the 610 to 650 range, as increased competition on the world market from Ukraine and Russia have limited advances and a poor start to the winter wheat crops in the US and Ukraine has helped to support the market on weakness. With a dry weather outlook ahead, only 53% of the Ukraine crop has emerged with 30% of the crop rated in poor condition. For the first US crop conditions report of the season, the winter wheat crop was rated 47% good/excellent, which was unchanged from last year. Last year was the worst-rated first crop reading of the year since at least 1986, which is as far back as our records go. After the close yesterday, Egypt announced a tender for optional origin wheat. The tender will include Ukraine, and traders will monitor the results this morning to see if the increased competition for Russia will drive down prices. Kazakhstan may be in a position to export nearly 15 million tonnes of grain this year. Last year, production was only 12.2 million tonnes. December wheat closed lower on the session yesterday and pushed to a new low for the day late in the session. A firm US dollar and increased demand concerns offset the inflationary tilt to energy and metal markets, as there was increased anxiety over the European debt issues and commodity market action was mostly weak and followed the stock market lower. A shift away from commodity markets by fund traders with the uncertain economic outlook helped to pressure the market. Jordan bought 100,000 tonnes of wheat from Ukraine. China has apparently bought near 500,000 tonnes of wheat from Australia in the last couple of weeks, and traders see China using more wheat as a substitute for high priced corn. Putin warned grain traders in his country that protective tariffs would be introduced if exports exceed 24-25 million tonnes.