Wheat hits two-week high on dry US weather

Wheat futures rose nearly three percent in American trade to April 11 highs even as the dollar index scaled January 15 highs, amid a lack of data from the US, the world's third largest wheat exporter, and amid dry US weather in the south and a bad start for spring in Russia. 

As of 07:58 GMT, wheat futures due on July 15 rose 3.05% to $4.99 from the opening of $4.8426, marking two-week highs, while the dollar index added 0.48% to 91.20 from the opening of 90.77, marking three-month highs. 

Bloomberg reported that Russian wheat output fell by 9% from record highs in 2017 to between 72 and 78 million bushels due to a late winter that led to delays in spring harvests. 

The US Department of Agriculture reported wheat sales dropped 66.9 thousand tonnes in the week ending April 12 to the lowest this marketing year, with Philippines at the top of the list at 48.3 thousand tonnes, then Chile at 33 thousand, and Peru at 7.4K, while Japan and unknown buyers cancelled 63K and 67K tonnes of shipments.

The USDA's report on Tuesday showed only 31% of winter wheat harvest is good or excellent, compared to 30% in the previous week, and much lower than 52% in the same period of last year. 

The USDA also reported 483.06 thousand tonnes of inspected wheat in the week ending April 12, up from 431.48 thousand in the previous week, and 685.44 thousand tonnes in the same period of last year, with total inspected wheat product in the marketing year starting June amounting to 20.9 million tonnes, down from 23.2 million in the previous year. 

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.