01/22/07 Wheat futures down despite good exports

Market Line January 22, 2007 Wheat futures closed lower Friday. Peter Georgantones of Investment Trading Services at Bloomington, Minnesota says this was despite a USDA export sales report that pegged wheat sales at 842-thousand metric tons. Georgantones: "We had excellent export sales, about 300-thousand tons more than what they were looking for but it didn't seem to buoy the market because the corn was down. Soybeans kind of flat and Chicago and Kansas City were flat as well." Weaker corn prices also pressured wheat and the beneficial weather for Plains wheat continues to be a negative. One private forecasting service predicted U.S. spring wheat acreage at 14.3 million acres. That would be about 548-thousand less than last year. On Friday, Chicago March wheat was down four cents at 4-67. March corn down 5 ½ cents at 4-06 ¾. Portland cash soft white wheat three cents higher at mostly $5. Club wheat $5. HRW 11.5 percent protein four to six cents lower at 5-59. Dark northern spring 14% protein down four at 5-76. Barley at the coast 170 dollars a ton. Live cattle futures were lower Friday with feeders mostly higher. Lower boxed beef and cash sales down a dollar from the previous week at 87 dollars were negative for live cattle. A Cattle on Feed Report comes out Friday. Feb live cattle down 135 at 91-05. March feeders up two cents at 93-57. Feb Class III milk up seven cents at 13-70. USDA reported last week that milk production in the 23 major states during December was up 2.7 percent over December of 2005. I'm Bob Hoff and that's Market Line on the Northwest Ag Information Network. Now this.