Wheat fell from a two-month high on speculation that earlier gains were exaggerated as rain may aid dry crops in the U.S. Great Plains and as lower corn prices limit demand for wheat as a livestock feed.
Parts of Oklahoma and eastern Texas may receive 0.25 inch (0.6 centimeter) to 0.75 inch of rain tomorrow through April 24, said Mike Tannura, the president of T-Storm Weather in Chicago. Some of those areas have had less than 10 percent of normal rain in the past month, National Weather Service data show. Before today, wheat rallied 5.8 percent over three sessions.
“We do have some chances of rain Thursday and Friday,” said Tom Leffler, the owner of Leffler Commodities LLC in Augusta, Kansas. “We’ve had three days of upside in the wheat market, so to see it sell off at the end of today wasn’t a shock. We got some pressure from corn, too.”
Wheat futures for July delivery declined 0.25 cent to settle at $8.2075 a bushel at 1:15 p.m. on the Chicago Board of Trade, after reaching $8.4375, the highest for a most-active contract since Feb. 22. The price is up 65 percent in the past year.
Corn futures for July delivery plunged 2.2 percent, the most in a week, to settle at $7.405 a bushel on the CBOT.
More than two-thirds of winter crops in Oklahoma and Texas were in poor or very poorcondition as of April 17, after months of dry weather, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said. Spring planting hasn’t started yet in Minnesota and North Dakota, the biggest U.S. wheat-producing state, behind schedule from last year. Much of the area still has snow on the ground.
Wheat is the fourth-biggest U.S. crop, valued at $13 billion in 2010, behind corn, soybeans and hay, government data show. The U.S. is the world’s largest exporter of wheat.
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