Wheat Heads Lower into the Weekend

Austin Schroeder Barchart Fri Mar 28, 5:02PM CDT
Field of wheat under a blue cloudy sky by Robin Via Pixabay

The wheat market closed with weakness across the three exchanges on Friday. Chicago SRW futures were falling back 3 to 5 cents on the session. Kansas City HRW contracts were leading the charge lower, with contracts down 14 to 15 cents. MPLS spring wheat is down 6 to 8 cents across the front months.

The Friday afternoon Commitment of Traders data from CFTC showed speculators in Chicago wheat adding 11,919 contracts to their net short as of Tuesday to 92,587 contracts. In KC, they were trimming that large net short by 1,213 contracts to 45,450 contracts by March 25.

USDA’s Export Sales data has wheat commitments at 21.092 MMT as of 3/20, which is 12% ahead of the same week last year. That is also just 93% of the USDA projection and lagging behind the 101% average pace.

NASS will report the March 1 Grain Stocks data next Monday, with a Bloomberg survey of traders looking for 1.221 bbu of wheat on hand on average. The range is from 1.169 to 1.26 bbu for the March 1 total. 

May 25 CBOT Wheat  closed at $5.28 1/4, down 3 3/4 cents,

Jul 25 CBOT Wheat  closed at $5.42 3/4, down 4 1/2 cents,

May 25 KCBT Wheat  closed at $5.51 3/4, down 14 1/2 cents,

Jul 25 KCBT Wheat  closed at $5.65 1/2, down 14 1/4 cents,

May 25 MGEX Wheat  closed at $5.81, down 7 1/2 cents,

Jul 25 MGEX Wheat  closed at $5.96 1/2, down 6 3/4 cents,


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