CBOT wheat futures declined for a third day in four sessions on speculation that abundant global supply will be sufficient to make up for potential production losses in Russia.

September delivery wheat lost as much as 0.6% to US$5.46 a bushel on the CBOT and was at US$5.4825 at 11:10 a.m. Singapore time.

Wheat's 14-day relative strength index (RSI) has been above 70 since last Wednesday (July 7), a signal some traders use to indicate prices are poised to fall.

"At the end of the day, we still do have ample carry-over supplies," Luke Mathews, a commodity strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), said today (July 14).

Global wheat stockpiles at the beginning of the 2010-2011 marketing year are 193 million tonnes, the USDA said Friday (July 9). That is more than three times the 53 million tonnes forecast harvest for Russia, according to USDA data.

Hot, dry weather will persist in European parts of Russia through Saturday (July 17), with rains coming to the Urals and Siberia, the Federal Hydrometeorological Service said on its website yesterday (July 13).

The government declared emergencies in two more Russian crop-producing regions on Monday (July 12), bringing the total to 16, as the worst drought in at least a decade damages grains.

"The continued focus on dryness in Russia and Kazakhstan is of significant interest," CBA's Mathews said. "It is likely the reductions that we've seen in yield potentials will flow through to the next round of the USDA report."

The USDA is scheduled to release its next estimate on global agricultural supply and demand on August 12.

Wheat futures may decline between 5% and 10% from today's (July 14) prices by the end of September because "the market probably got a little bit ahead of itself in terms of issues in Russia," Mathews said.

Futures jumped 14% this month through yesterday (July 13).

Ukraine, the second-biggest producer in the former Soviet Union, harvested wheat from 321,000 hectares as of last Thursday (July 8), with an average yield of 2.7 tonnes per hectare, compared with 2.55 tonnes last year, UkrAgroConsult, a Kiev, Ukraine-based researcher, said on Monday (July 12).

France, the largest wheat producer in the EU, will export 9.85 million tonnes of soft wheat outside the European Union, 3.6% more than the forecast last month, as the euro's decline makes the grain cheaper overseas, national crops office FranceAgriMer said.

Corn for December delivery was little changed at US$3.865 a bushel, after swinging between gains and losses. Soy for November delivery were also little changed at US$9.535 a bushel.