March Wheat finished up 4 1/2 at 788 1/2, 2 off the high and 8 3/4 up from the low. July Wheat closed up 7 3/4 at 814. This was 9 1/2 up from the low and 1 off the high. The market saw some late day buying to support a higher close with dryness in the US and fears of further losses in Austria helping to support. Continued rains in Australia supported the market early but expected tightness for hard red supply helped to support KC and Minneapolis wheat relative to Chicago. News that Iraq bought 250,000 tonnes of US wheat helped provide some underlying support. Egypt bought 240,000 tonnes of soft wheat from Argentina and France and with no sales from the US the news was seen as somewhat negative. However, Egypt did not buy hard wheat and typically buys soft wheat elsewhere. Argentina’s Buenos Aires Grain Exchange increased their estimate for the 2010/11 wheat crop to 13.0 million tonnes from 12.7 million previous. US weekly export sales came in at 535,500 tonnes for the current marketing year and 191,000 for the next marketing year for a total of 726,500 which was higher than traders expected. Cumulative wheat sales stand at 69.8% of the USDA forecast for 2010/2011 (current) marketing year versus a 5 year average of 71.0%. Sales of 398,000 metric tonnes are needed each week to reach the USDA forecast. The EU granted export licenses for 127,000 tonnes of soft wheat this week which pushed to total for the marketing year to 10.3 million tonnes as compared with 7.5 million at this point last year. Dry weather in the US plains with talk of a lack of significant rain in the forecast for the next week helped to provide some underlying support. March Oats closed up 4 at 382. This was 6 3/4 up from the low and 1 off the high.

Bron: CME