07/23/07 Watching spring wheat belt weather

Market Line July 23, 2007 Only Minneapolis wheat futures posted slight gains Friday with losses recorded at Chicago and Kansas City. Hot weather remains a concern for the spring wheat belt of the northern plains as well as into Canada. Brian Hoops of Midwest Market Solutions thinks wheat is still trying to correct from being overbought. Hoops: "We have opened higher and tried to rally and just saw profit taking off of any highs. We are getting some hedge pressure in the spring wheat contract as well as we are getting with a couple of weeks till harvest as producers are taking advantage of what looks like a decent sized crop along with good prices and make some sales, which is smart. But it is curtailing the ability to rally the market on strong demand news." On Friday Chicago Sept wheat was down 3 ¾ cents at 6-16 ¼. Sept corn down three at 3-18 ¼. Portland cash soft white wheat steady to four cents lower at mostly 6-42. Club wheat 6-50. HRW 11.5 percent protein two to three cents lower at 6-57. Dark northern spring 14% protein eight to nine lower at 6-90. Barley at the coast 167 dollars a ton through December. USDA's Cattle on Feed report Friday pegged the feedlot inventory July 1st at 99 percent of a year ago, placements were down 15 percent and marketings last month were down three percent. The total U.S. cattle inventory report pegged the nation's herd just slightly below a year ago at 104.8 million head. Prior to the reports Friday August live cattle were unchanged at 90-82. August feeders up a nickel at 115-50. August Class III milk up 20 cents at 19-10. I'm Bob Hoff and that's Market Line on the Northwest Ag Information Network. Now this.