US Wheat Review on Friday: Slides on profit-taking, harvest pressure

 

 

Profit-taking, spillover selling and harvest pressure drove U.S. wheat futures mostly lower Friday.

 

Chicago Board of Trade July wheat tumbled 14 1/2 cents to US$8.66 1/2 per bushel, down 15 1/2 cents on the week. Kansas City Board of Trade July wheat slid 15 cents to US$9.15, down 9 1/4 cents on the week. Minneapolis Grain Exchange July wheat rose 3 cents to US$10.93, up 38 3/4 cents on the week, and MGE September wheat fell 12 cents to US$9.70, down 7 cents on the week.

 

Traders booked profits ahead of the weekend and after recent gains. Fundamentals for wheat remain bearish, as global ending stocks are projected to increase in 2008-09, said Jason Britt, broker and analyst for Central State Commodities.

 

"The increasing carryout picture in wheat is negative," Britt said. "As a trader, as a broker, you'll stay out of more trouble if you stay long in markets with declining carryouts and short in markets with rising carryouts."

 

Weakness in the CBOT corn and soybeans added pressure to wheat, traders said. Wheat has followed corn recently, as both grains are used for animal feed.

 

Wheat could go on the defensive again next week, with traders taking money off the table ahead of the end of the month and quarter, said Alan Brugler, president of Brugler Marketing & Management. Traders are expected to even up positions next week going into the U.S. Department of Agriculture's June 30 acreage report.

 

Commodity funds Friday sold an estimated 2,000 contracts at the CBOT.

 

 

Kansas City Board of Trade

 

Expectations for the hard red winter wheat harvest to advance during the weekend following recent rain delays weighed on KCBT wheat, an analyst said. Drier weather in the U.S. southern Plains starting Sunday should allow cutters to get back in the fields after harvest in northeast Oklahoma and southeast Kansas "kind of shut down," he said.

 

The markets should find some direction Monday from the results of a tender from Egypt's state-owned General Authority for Supply Commodities, a  shipment July 16-31 on a free-on-board basis.

 

 

Minneapolis Grain Exchange

 

MGE wheat futures ended mostly lower on profit-taking, following losses at the CBOT and KCBT. Short-covering helped support the nearby July contract, a trader said.