Wheat Futures Mixed into FAS Report

Morning wheat quotes are on both sides of UNCH across the classes. Chicago wheat prices rallied double digits after the USDA data. March SRW closed on a 15 cent gain, just 1 1/2 cents off the day’s high. December SRW is now priced above $8/bu. Kansas City wheat futures settled with 6 1/2 to 10 1/4 cent gains on Wednesday, with March going home just 2 1/2 cents under the day’s high. Minneapolis spring wheat closed up by 5 3/4 to 9 cents on report day. The new cash average price from USDA is $9/bu, a dime weaker than the Jan figure. 

Ahead of the weekly Export Sales report, analysts are expecting between 125k MT and 450k MT of wheat was sold during the week that ended 02/02. New crop business is expected to be below 175k MT. USDA will release the data shortly after the time of writing. 

USDA essentially left the domestic S&D tables UNCH from Jan, save for a 2 mbu lighter food use, 1 mbu more seed use, and a 1 mbu looser carryout. The average trade guess was to see a 12 mbu looser carryout. While squaring up the numbers, USDA also transferred ~10mbu from SRW exports to white. 

USDA’s global S&Ds showed a 2.5 MMT production boost, mainly from Australia (+1.4) and Russia (+1). Trade was raised by 2 MMT with a 1 MMT boost for China. Carryout was 950k MT higher on net from January, which was slightly above the trade average guess going in. 

Mar 23 CBOT Wheat  closed at $7.64 3/4, up 15 cents, currently up 2 1/4 cents

May 23 CBOT Wheat  closed at $7.75, up 13 3/4 cents, currently up 1 3/4 cents

Cash SRW Wheat  was $7.04 1/4, up 14 1/2 cents,

Mar 23 KCBT Wheat  closed at $8.96, up 10 1/4 cents, currently down 3 1/2 cents

Cash HRW Wheat  was $8.62 3/8, up 10 1/4 cents,

Mar 23 MGEX Wheat  closed at $9.26 1/4, up 9 cents, currently down 3/4 cent