(Bloomberg) – Wheat dropped on speculation investors were closing bets on price gains before a U.S. Department of Agriculture report that may show the nation’s inventories fell the least, compared with corn and soybeans.
Wheat for delivery in May lost as much as 0.5 percent to $7.2775 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade, before trading at $7.3025 by 10:55 a.m. Singapore time. The volume was 78 percent below the 100-day average for that time of day.
Stockpiles probably fell 2.8 percent to 1.165 billion bushels as of March 1, from a year earlier, according to the average estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. The first-quarter reserves of corn plunged 17 percent to the lowest in 15 years, while soybean inventories slumped 31 percent to the smallest since 2004, the survey showed. The USDA reports on stockpiles and planting intentions are due tomorrow.
“Investors are probably liquidating long positions in wheat ahead of the USDA report because the quarterly stockpiles are likely to be better than corn and soybeans,” Joyce Liu, an analyst at Phillip Futures Pte, said by phone from Singapore today, referring to bets on price gains.
Money managers had long positions in futures totaling 86,063 contracts as of March 19, and short positions of 124,376 contracts, data from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission show.
Corn for May delivery declined 0.2 percent to $7.2875 a bushel, while soybeans for delivery in the same month fell 0.2 percent to $14.45 a bushel.
