12/19/08 Watching plains wheat weather

Market Line December 19, 2008 Wheat futures put in double digit gains Thursday despite a turn around in the dollar and weakness in other outside markets. The weekly export sales report also came in at the low end of expectations for wheat. But Louise Gartner for the Linn Group at the Chicago Board of Trade says the focus is on the cold suffered by plains winter wheat with more on the way. Gartner: "It is expected there will be more snow cover this time around, but nevertheless these cold temperatures have hung around for sometime most likely causing some type of damage to much of the central plains but it will be too hard to assess until spring time arrives. Nevertheless wheat market responding to this, shaking some shorts as we move higher and again, quickly approaching some significant resistance on the upside." On Thursday Chicago March wheat was up 14 cents at 5-71 ½. March corn unchanged at 3-89 ½. Portland soft white wheat any protein eight to 25 cents higher at mostly 5-25. Maximum 10.5 percent protein 5-40. Club wheat 6-85. Maximum 10.5 percent club wheat $7. Still no hard red winter wheat bids. DNS 14% protein 12 cents higher at 8-36. No Portland barley bids. Cattle futures dropped Thursday. Initially there was profit taking, uncertainty about cash fed cattle and uneasiness going into this afternoon' monthly Cattle on Feed report. Feb live cattle down 117 at 85-70. Jan feeders down 105 at 92-40. Jan Class III milk down 38 cents at 12-29. After the close USDA reported November milk production up 1.1 percent from a year ago. I'm Bob Hoff and that's Market Line on the Northwest Ag Information Network. Now this.