Wheat falls off one-month high as the week wraps up

Wheat futures slid nearly two percent in American trade away from March 13 highs for the fourth straight session as the dollar index traded mostly flat near March 28 lows, following earlier data from the US, the world's second largest wheat exporter. 

As of 07:31 GMT, wheat futures due on May 15 fell 1.81% to $4.8925 a bushel from the opening of $4.9825, while the dollar index barely inched up 0.01% to 89.76 from the opening of 89.75. 

University of Michigan released its preliminary consumer sentiment survey, showing a drop to 97.8 in April from 101.4 in March, missing expectations of 100.6. 

US JOLTS job openings fell to 6.05 million in February from 6.23 million in January, also missing forecasts of 6.11 million. 

The US Department of Agriculture reported yesterday wheat sales of 120.7 thousand tonnes last week, up 11% from the previous week, while down 46% from the four-week average, with Mexico at the top of the buyers list at 54.4 thousand tonnes, followed by Vietnam at 48.3 thousand tonnes, and Japan at 35.6 thousand, then Malaysia at 15.7 thousand, while Indonesia and unknown buyers cancelled orders of 33.5K and 28.1K respectively. 

Otherwise, the USDA recently released its monthly report on supply and demand projections, raising expectations for US wheat inventories in the marketing year of 2017-2018 by 30 million bushels to 1.064 billion bushels, while maintaining wheat prices projections between $4.6 and $4.7 per bushel. 

The USDA raised forecasts for global wheat supplies by 3 million tonnes, while expecting another record high for output at 759.8 million tonnes, with growth in supplies expected to surpass consumption growth, while global wheat inventories are expected to rise by 2.3 million tonnes to 271.2 million tonnes.