Front-month Chicago Board of Trade wheat futures drifted lower Friday in thin technical trade but recorded a yearly rise of nearly 5 percent, halting a four-year slide tied to persistently large global inventories. The spot March contract fell 3/4 cent Friday to end at $4.27 a bushel, compared with the closing 2016 spot futures price of $4.08.

Spot K.C. hard red winter wheat settled at $4.27-1/4 a bushel, up from $4.18-1/2 at the end of 2016. Spot MGEX spring wheat finished at $6.14-3/4, up from $5.38 a year ago, reflecting tightening supplies of high-protein milling wheat despite a global surplus of lesser grades of wheat.

US markets will be closed on Monday for the New Year's Day holiday. Trade in CBOT grains will resume Tuesday at 8:30 am CST (1430 GMT).

A New Year's Day cold snap in the southern US Plains poses a threat to winter wheat, particularly in Kansas, the country's biggest producer of the grain, meteorologists said. The US Department of Agriculture reported export sales of US wheat in the latest week at 540,400 tonnes (old and new crop years combined), in line with trade estimates for 250,000 to 550,000 tonnes.

Copyright Reuters, 2018