06/04/08 CFTC announcements impact commodities

Market Line June 4, 2008 Wheat futures were mostly sharply lower Tuesday. Several reasons were mentioned from rains in dry areas of the U.S. hard red winter wheat belt to rains in dry eastern Australia. Lynn Smith of the Zaner Group in Chicago says announcements by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission regarding ag markets also had an impact. Smith: "The CFTC said it was developing a proposal to make index traders and swap dealers divulge more detailed information as well as possibly submit to a new type of classification. The CFTC also said it was withdrawing a proposal to hike speculative position limits on some agricultural futures, which was effectively telling long-only index funds that they would not be able to add any more long positions." Both Russia and the Ukraine are forecasting much larger wheat crops than last year. On Tuesday Chicago July wheat was down 32 ½ cents at 7-50. July corn down 8 ¼ at 6-07 ½. Portland August new crop soft white wheat was mixed at 7-13 to 7-50. August HRW 11.5 % protein down 32 cents at 8-78. August DNS 14% protein 31 to 36 cents lower at 9-80. Barley at the coast 208 dollars a ton for July. Cattle futures were lower again Tuesday with live contracts seeing profit taking and fund selling. Feeder cattle contracts followed. August live cattle down 92 cents at 99-90. August feeders down 17 at 113-52. July Class III milk up 19 cents at 20-50. CWT says it will conduct another dairy herd retirement round this summer. I'm Bob Hoff and that's Market Line on the Northwest Ag Information Network. Now this.