Bargain buying and fund positioning had Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) wheat futures inching upward on Thursday, while Minneapolis spring wheat futures bounced up from a new-contract low. CBOT March soft red winter wheat closed up 1/2-cent at $5.10-1/2 a bushel, after setting its lowest price since Nov. 30 earlier in the session. MGEX March spring wheat finished up 3 cents at $5.52-1/4 a bushel, after dropping to a contract low of $5.44-1/2 earlier in the day.

Worries US spring wheat exports to Japan could decline due to a multilateral agreement that excludes the United States were likely to anchor the MGEX contract, traders said. K.C. March wheat futures settled down 1/2 cent at $4.95 per bushel. Earlier in the session, and for the second day in a row, the price fell to the lowest since December 6.

Russia harvested 72.068 million tonnes of wheat this year, a decline from 86 million tonnes in 2017, the statistics service said on Thursday, Interfax news agency reported. The ongoing dearth of export sales news from the US Department of Agriculture this week kept a cap on prices across the grains complex on Thursday, traders said. Daily export sales reporting by USDA has halted during the partial shutdown of the federal government.

Copyright Reuters, 2018