Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) July wheat futures closed unchanged on Wednesday, as traders await damage assessments from the recent US Plains' snowstorm, analysts said. Most-active CBOT July wheat settled unchanged at $4.54 per bushel. The benchmark CBOT July soft red winter wheat contract briefly broke through its 200-day moving average during overnight trading but failed to hold support above that key technical point. K.C. July hard red winter wheat settled down 4-1/2 cents at $4.63-1/4 a bushel and MGEX July spring wheat closed up 3-3/4 cents at $5.61-1/4.

Yield prospects for hard red winter wheat in western Kansas were uncertain after a major weekend storm buried some fields under heavy snow, scouts on an annual crop tour said on Wednesday. Much of the wheat was flattened in the fields hit hardest by snow, and some stalks snapped or bent. Trade estimates for weekly wheat export sales, which will be released on Thursday morning by the US Department of Agriculture, ranged from 200,000 to 550,000 tonnes, compared to 367,094 a week ago.

Copyright Reuters, 2017