Wheat Market: Soft Wheat Holds Steady as Hard Wheat Faces Pressure

The wheat market exhibited mixed results across all three exchanges on Friday. Soft wheat contracts remained stable, while hard wheat showed significant weakness. Chicago SRW futures were varied, with some contracts increasing by a penny and others decreasing by 1 ½ cents. Notably, December futures saw an uptick of 4 ½ cents over the week. In contrast, Kansas City HRW contracts dropped 2 ½ to 4 ¾ cents for the day, leading to a 2 ½ cent decrease since last Friday. Meanwhile, MPLS spring wheat was down by 4 ¾ to 6 ½ cents on the day, closing the week with a net loss of 2 cents across the five trading days.

The USDA’s latest WASDE report revealed slight modifications to the wheat balance sheet. A modest increase of 5 million bushels in imports was noted, along with a 2 million bushel rise in food usage. Consequently, U.S. wheat stocks finished the week at 815 million bushels, just 3 million bushels higher.

Globally, ending stocks showed a minor decline of 0.15 million metric tons, bringing the total to 257.57 million metric tons. Russian production fell by 0.5 million metric tons to 81.5 million metric tons, with Argentina also seeing a decrease to 17.5 million metric tons. The European Union’s wheat production tightened slightly by 0.4 million metric tons to 122.6 million metric tons.

The weekly Commitment of Traders report indicated that large managed money speculators in Chicago wheat held a net short position of 30,781 contracts as of November 5, marking a reduction of 391 contracts from the previous week. Conversely, in Kansas City wheat, they increased their net long positions by 4,920 contracts, bringing the total to 14,080 contracts.

Dec 24 CBOT Wheat closed at $5.72 1/2, up 1 cent.

Mar 25 CBOT Wheat closed at $5.87 1/2, down 1 1/2 cents.

Dec 24 KCBT Wheat closed at $5.64 1/4, down 4 3/4 cents.

Mar 25 KCBT Wheat closed at $5.77 1/2, down 4 cents.

Dec 24 MGEX Wheat closed at $5.97 3/4, down 4 3/4 cents.

Mar 25 MGEX Wheat closed at $6.17 1/4, down 6 1/2 cents.

On the date of publication, Austin Schroeder did not hold (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article are provided solely for informational purposes. For more details, please refer to the Barchart Disclosure Policy here.

The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.