Wheat Weaker to Start Friday

The wheat complex is showing early losses across the front months on Friday.  Futures closed mixed across the three exchanges on Thursday. Chicago SRW futures were down 2 to 4 cents to close out the day. Kansas City HRW contracts were fractionally to 2 cents in the green on the day. Preliminary open interest was down 2,376 contracts. MPLS spring wheat posted losses of 1 to 2 cents Thursday. 

In response to President Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, China issued a retaliatory tariff of 34% on all US goods overnight. While there is very little wheat on the books to China, the market is furthering the risk off trade ahead of the weekend.

Thursday’s USDA Export Sales report showed 339,986 MT of US wheat sales for the week ending on March 27. That was a 3-week high and well above the same week last year. Ecuador was the top buyer of 71,900 MT, with Japan purchasing 59,300 MT. New crop sales were tallied at 95,242 MT. 

February wheat exports totaled 1.765 MMT (64.85 mbu) according to Census data, which was 34.37% above January but down 4.47% from last year.  That takes the MY exports through the first 3 quarters to 584 mbu (598 including products).

May 25 CBOT Wheat  closed at $5.36, down 3 1/4 cents,

Jul 25 CBOT Wheat  closed at $5.50, down 2 3/4 cents,

May 25 KCBT Wheat  closed at $5.69, up 1/2 cent,

Jul 25 KCBT Wheat  closed at $5.80 3/4, up 1 cent,

May 25 MGEX Wheat  closed at $5.91 1/4, down 1 1/4 cents,

Jul 25 MGEX Wheat  closed at $6.07, down 1 cent,