U.S. wheat futures rose on Friday, supported by end-of-week short-covering as well as another export sale to China, traders said.
• The benchmark Chicago Board of Trade September soft red winter wheat contract rose 3-1/4 cents to $6.63-3/4 a bushel. Prices peaked at $6.70, but ran into resistance at the 20-day moving average of $6.71-3/4, a key technical point the contract has not closed above in a week.
• KCBT hard red winter wheat futures and MGEX spring wheat posted modest gains.
• For the week, CBOT September wheat lost 1.7 per cent, snapping a two-week winning streak.
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• Traders said harvest pressure was easing as farmers finished up tasks in the field, which would lead to a slowdown in the delivery of supplies to grain terminals . • Exporters sold 120,000 tonnes of U.S. soft red winter wheat to China for delivery during the 2013/14 marketing year, the U.S. Agriculture Department said.
Chicago Board of Trade old-crop September corn futures closed firm on Friday on tight stocks and slow farmer selling, but new-crop December was weighed down by good crop weather in the U.S. Midwest growing region, traders said.
Cooler temperatures and occasional rainfall over the next week will boost U.S. corn and soybean crop prospects, an agricultural meteorologist said on Friday.
“It looks pretty good, I would say the corn crop is void of any threats to pollination,” said John Dee, meteorologist for Global Weather Monitoring.
Cash basis bids for corn were steady to sharply higher in the U.S. Midwest on Friday with bids rising to record levels at many processors and ethanol plants as farmers delayed sales of old-crop supplies, dealers said.
South Korea’s largest animal feed maker Nonghyup Feed Inc (NOFI) purchased 165,00 tonnes of feed corn in a tender, likely to be sourced from the Black Sea region and South Africa, European traders said.
With the U.S. corn crop’s pollination phase fast approaching, bulls and bears are on edge over the potential price moves in the Chicago Board of Trade corn market. The focus is on new-crop December, which holds over half of the total CBOT corn open interest.
CBOT new-crop corn hovered above critical technical support at $4.90 a bushel on Friday, chartists said, as investors wait to see if much-needed rain forecast for the coming weeks will help crops across the grain belt.
The RBOB gasoline to ethanol spread was at
6.4 cents premium gasoline, up from 6.1 cents on Thursday. Key resistance for the September contract is at its 50-day moving average of $5.65-1/4, and the nine-day relative strength index is at 46.
Chicago Board of Trade soybean futures closed higher on Friday, led by old-crop spot August, due to tight stocks of soy and slow farmer selling.
Gains were slowed in new-crop November due to good crop growing weather in the U.S. Midwest.
