(Bloomberg) – Wheat traded near the highest level in more than three weeks on signs of increasing demand amid concern that freezing temperatures damaged some crops in the U.S., the biggest exporter.
The contract for March delivery gained as much as 0.2 percent to $5.885 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade and was at $5.8825 by 12:19 p.m. in Singapore. Futures reached $5.8875 yesterday, the highest since Jan. 10. Prices are heading for a sixth session of gains, the longest such rally since March, and are set to climb 5.9 percent this week on concern that cold temperatures last month damaged hard red-winter crops across the southern Great Plains.
Japan plans to buy the most milling variety in almost three years at a tender today, the Agriculture Ministry said Feb. 4. The country will boost imports from the U.S. after shipments from Canada arrived late for a second month, the ministry said today. U.S. export sales probably gained in the week ended Jan. 30 from a year earlier, according to a Bloomberg survey before the Department of Agriculture releases its report today.
Prices increased on “U.S. crop concerns and a recent pickup in demand,” Luke Mathews, a commodity strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, wrote in a note.
Exporters sold between 400,000 metric tons and 700,000 tons in the week ended Jan. 30 from 290,779 tons a year earlier, the Bloomberg survey shows. In Kansas, the top U.S. producer of winter-wheat varieties, the crop was rated 35 percent good or excellent from 58 percent on Dec. 30, the USDA said Feb. 3.
Soybeans for March delivery were little changed at $13.175 a bushel. Corn advanced 0.2 percent to $4.44 a bushel, matching yesterday’s intraday peak, which was the highest for a most-active contract since Nov. 13.
