Wheat prices ended the first day of the last week of February with gains of more than 1%. KC futures led the way, recapturing a premium to SRW in the leading month of the March contract, with 7 ¾ to 15 cent gains. Chicago futures were up 3 ¾ to 8 cents at the close. Spring wheat futures in Minneapolis ended Monday’s session 5 ¾ to 6 cents higher.
Weekly updates from Crop Progress showed winter wheat ratings were 46% G/E in TX for a 328 Brugler500 Score on 2/25. That was up from 319 last week. Winter wheat was also reported at 8% per capita. In KS, winter wheat conditions improved 3 points on the Brugler500 to 346 versus their Jan update. Terms in NE dropped from 372 Brugler500 score in the Jan update to 363 in the Feb update. The monthly update showed that IL winter wheat scored 378 on the Brugler500 scale, compared to 387 last update.
Polish protesters reportedly vandalized rail cars loaded with Ukrainian grain, reportedly destroying 160 MT. Reporters mentioned that this was the 4th incident, although the other 3 happened at the border.
The USDA Export Inspections report had 481,999 MT of wheat shipments for the week ending 2/22. That was up from 420k MT the previous week, but down 171.3k MT from the same week last year. HRS shipments led the way with 224.5k MT of the total, with SRW accounting for 139.4k MT. USDA added 38k MT of HRW shipments reported late, which left the seasonal total at 12.6 MMT through 2/22. That remains 2.7 MMT behind last year’s export pace.
Mar 24 CBOT Wheat closed at $5.77 1/4, up 3 3/4 cents,
24 May CBOT Wheat closed at $5.74 3/4, up 5 3/4 cents,
Mar 24 KCBT Wheat closed at $5.83 3/4, up 15 cents,
Mar 24 MGEX Wheat closed at $6.48 1/4, up 6 3/4 cents,
As of the date of publication, Alan Brugler 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 for informational purposes only. For more information, please see Barchart’s Disclosure Policy here.
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