02/22/05 Egypt buys French wheat

02/22/05 Egypt buys French wheat

Marketline February 22, 2005 As traders return from their three-day holiday weekend they will have the news that Egypt purchased 60-thousand tons of French milling wheat in a tender that was issued last Friday. Gary Hofer of Gary Hofer Commodities says that news may play a role in market direction today. Otherwise the largest market influence right now is the big trading funds. Hofer: "Some would say this group of large speculative traders has too much power, but the fact is they can be monitored and even provide a good trend factor for analysis. The fundamentals of wheat are still negative with global export supplies at a level that allows buyers to be choosy and chinsy. The trend line remains lower until something fundamental comes along that has the power to shift the center of the wheat price range. This may be spring weather, but we are still some weeks from that." On Friday, Chicago March wheat was up a half cent at 2-96. March corn up 3/4 at $2. Portland cash white wheat steady to firm at mostly 3-92. New crop August white wheat higher at 3-71. Club wheat 3-98. PNW HRW 11.5 percent protein 4-17. Dark northern spring 14% protein 4-90. Export barley 102 dollars a ton. USDA's Cattle on Feed Report issued Friday pegged the total feedlot inventory as of February 1st up two percent from a year ago, placements last month up seven percent and marketings were even with January of last year. Analysts viewed the report as neutral to friendly for cattle futures. Ahead of the report cattle futures were lower. April live cattle down 185 at 85-45. March feeders down 232 at 98-30. March Class III milk down seven cents at 13-66. I'm Bob Hoff and that's Marketline on the Northwest Ag Information Network.
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