CBOT wheat futures slide on profit taking, corn weakness
Chicago Board of Trade wheat futures finished lower on Friday, after a volatile day of trading and weakness in corn futures prompted investors to hunt for profits ahead of the weekend, analysts said.
Late in the session, the market shrugged off questions about weather-related impacts on southern hemisphere crops, traders said.
In the U.S. cash market, spot basis bids for hard red winter wheat held steady at rail and truck market elevators across the southern U.S. Plains, but farmer sales were slow.
CBOT December soft red winter wheat futures WZ3 settled down 8 cents to close at $5.86 a bushel. Earlier in the session, the most-active contract Wv1 touched $6.04-1/2 a bushel, the highest since Sept. 15.
The most-active contract Wv1 notched its third straight weekly gain.
KC December hard red winter wheat futures KWZ3 last traded down 8-1/4 cents to $6.68 a bushel. MGEX December spring wheat MWEZ3 was down 8-1/4 cents at $7.30-3/4 a bushel.
Almost half of Argentina’s 2023/24 wheat crop is in fair to poor condition due to the lack of rainfall currently affecting core agricultural areas, the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange said on Thursday.
But recent rains across key Australian wheat growing areas are likely to increase yields there, analysts said, helping to offset crop losses caused by dry conditions in Argentina.
Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) bought a total of 89,873 metric tons of food-quality wheat from the United States and Canada in a regular tender that closed on Thursday.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by P.J. Huffstutter; editing by Diane Craft)
