Wheat Futures Weaker at Midday

Wheat prices are currently red through Thursday. CBT is 1 ¼ to 1 ¾ cents lower. KC HRW is trading 6 ¼ to 9 ½ cents lower so far. HRS is fractionally to 2 cents lower. 

USDA’s weekly Export Sales data listed 544,539 MT of wheat bookings for the week that ended 9/21. That was up 77% for the week and was 95% higher yr/yr. Estimates topped out at 500k MT. The data had 192k MT of the total listed as HRS, 183k MT for white, and 112k MT for HRW. Commitments by class show HRS leads with 36% of the total, followed by SRW and white with 22% each. HRW commitments were 18% of the 9.17 MMT total. 

Wire sources show Egypt booked 170k MT of wheat from Romania and Bulgaria, with Russian offers not competitive. Ukraine wheat was the cheapest, but shipping could not be arranged. Ukraine has exported  3.16  MMT of wheat since July 1 via a variety of channels. That is up 12% for LY, but corn shipping (tail end of marketing year) has suffered. 

Analysts are looking for NASS to show 1.77 bbu of Sep wheat stocks in the quarterly report on Friday. That would be 7 mbu tighter yr/yr on a 26 mbu smaller supply via WASDE. For the Small Grains report also slated for Friday, analysts are looking for a 2 mbu reduced production outlook for wheat. The average trade guess is to see 1.732 mbu, though estimates range from 1.689 bbu to 1.757. 

Dec 23 CBOT Wheat  is at $5.78 1/2, down 1 cent,

Mar 24 CBOT Wheat  is at $6.06, down 1 1/4 cents,

Cash SRW Wheat  is at $4.91 3/8, down 1 cent,

Dec 23 KCBT Wheat  is at $6.86, down 8 1/2 cents,

Cash HRW Wheat  is at $6.14 1/4, down 8 5/8 cents,

Dec 23 MGEX Wheat  is at $7.49, down 1 3/4 cents,