01/18/07 Corn helps wheat; spud stocks down

Market Line January 18, 2007 Wheat futures posted some double digit gains Wednesday helped by higher corn and short covering. Commentators say wheat's fundamentals however, remain bearish. A view Peter Georgantones of Investment Trading Services in Bloomington, Minnesota agrees with. Georgantones: "We've got good growing conditions throughout North America here right now for winter wheat and exports are just average. Again, we were up strong but wheat has been gotten beat up so bad we were due for a little short covering in here." Egypt appears to have booked just over one million tons of wheat from Kazakhstan. That shows the Black Sea region still has some wheat to sell in competition with the U.S. for the Egyptian market. On Wednesday Chicago March wheat was up 13 cents at 4-77. March corn up a nickel at 4-08. Portland cash soft white wheat one to five cents higher at mostly 4-97. Club wheat 4-97. HRW 11.5 percent protein six to nine cents higher at 5-64. Dark northern spring 14% protein ten to 13 higher at 5-80. Barley at the coast 173 dollars a ton. USDA has reported U.S potato stocks as of January 1st virtually unchanged from last year but seven percent below January 1 of 2005. Idaho's stocks are down one percent from a year ago, Washington's down nine percent and Oregon potato stocks down 16 percent from last season. Cattle futures were mostly higher Wednesday with Feb/April spreading a feature in the live pit. Back months traded higher on the assumption the next Cattle on Feed report will show December placements lower than previously anticipated. Feb live cattle up 27 cents at 92-55. March feeders up 17 at 92-75. Feb Class III milk up eight cents at 13-61. I'm Bob Hoff and that's Market Line on the Northwest Ag Information Network. Now this.