Wheat Markets Under Pressure

Wheat Markets Under Pressure

I'm KayDee Gilkey with the Market Line Report for May 3, 2012.

July wheat opened slightly lower and closed sharply lower on Wednesday with aggressive fund selling noted late in the day. Traders see very high yield potential for the winter wheat crop and the weather outlook suggests improving crop conditions ahead.

From the floor of the CME, Frank Lesh with Future Path Trading shares his observations of Wednesday’s markets.

Lesh: “Right now wheat is under pressure, of course. Possible record yields out there. Some of the crop tours are reporting very good looking stands. We need to dry out a little bit here. We are going into harvest, and we don’t want wheat to be wet during the harvest. And we are early, of course. We need that dry out to come too. Only five times in the past 25 years has the wheat crop be rated better than this year’s crop.”

Chicago July Wheat ended Wednesday down 28 and 1/2 cents at 6-14 and 1/2. July corn was down 17 and 1/2 cents at 6-11 and 1/2.

Portland prices for soft white wheat and club wheat were not fully established but were at mostly 7-05. Hard Red Winter Wheat with 11.5 pct protein prices were not fully established but ranged between 7-35 and 7-45. DNS wheat with 14 pct protein prices were not fully established but ranged between 9-02 and 9-07.

June live cattle ended down 65 cents at 112-88. August Feeder cattle were up 3 cents at 154-23. June class III milk was down 24 cents at 14-59.

I'm KayDee Gilkey with the Market Line Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.