02/19/07 Market holiday

Market Line February 16, 2007 Futures exchanges are closed today in observance of Presidents' Day. Mark Chiodo of Slipka Commodities at the Minneapolis Grain Exchange says there was a lot of positioning Friday ahead of the three-day weekend and wheat futures were sharply higher. Chiodo: "Down in Brazil you have Carnival going on and in the Pacific Rim there is the Chinese New Year. So all that happens at once and I think a lot of folks were evening up positions going into the weekend which gave us a fair amount of short covering, at least in the wheat pit there." Corn helped too with a NOAA forecast for La Nina which could mean hot and dry in the U.S. corn belt this summer. On Friday Chicago March wheat was up 14 ¾ cents at 4-68. March corn up 9 ½ at 4-17. Portland cash soft white wheat one to four cents higher at mostly 5-32. Club wheat 5-32. August new crop soft white four to 12 cents higher at 5-05. HRW 11.5 percent protein 12-14 cents higher at 5-88. Dark northern spring 14% protein up a dime at 6-05. Barley at the coast 172 dollars a ton. August 145 Cattle futures ended mixed Friday with feeders mostly lower getting pressured by higher corn. Spreading and evening up ahead of the long weekend was a feature. April live cattle up 15 cents at 96-55. March feeders down 27 at 100-dollars 17-cents. March Class III milk up 11 cents at 14-36. USDA reported Friday afternoon that milk production in the 23 major states in January was up 1.4 percent from January of 2006. I'm Bob Hoff and that's Market Line on the Northwest Ag Information Network. Now this.