Heavy weekend rains in the Southern Cornbelt and Plains along with frost threats helped fuel a rally Sunday night led by KC Wheat futures. In outside markets, crude oil was lower while the US Dollar was seeing light losses.
Temps in the SW hard wheat belt dropped to 30 degrees on Sunday night while some areas on E OK/ N AK / S MO and S IL had 8 to 12 inches of rain over the weekend. SW KS and the OK/TX panhandle had heavy snows accumulations of 10 to 12 inches. While it may have dented the crop, it probably did more to spark a mass exodus of large spec positions. On Friday’s CFTC report, funds are now all-time record short in Chicago wheat futures and options of 162,327 contracts, surpassing the 151,417 contracts in the week ended Oct. 4, 2016. On the net, 20,201 SRW contracts were sold last week, representing the largest sell-off in five weeks.
The week ahead looks to bring one more storm which will impact key U.S. crop areas later this week starting in the Plains Tuesday night and Wednesday and then focusing on the lower eastern Midwest, Delta and southeastern states Wednesday evening into Friday. But by the weekend and for the 2nd week, the rains seems to disappear from the forecast models.
Farming agency FranceAgriMer on Friday reported a sharp decline in crop conditions for wheat, with the amount of soft wheat rated good/excellent falling to 78 percent from 85 percent in the week to April 24.
The risk of trading futures, hedging, and speculating can be substantial. Grain Hedge is a Branch of Foremost Trading LLC (NFA ID: 0307930)
