02/24/05 Fund short positions greatly reduced

Marketline February 24, 2005 More fund short covering helped wheat futures close higher again Wednesday in Chicago and Kansas City but fund selling made for losses in hard red spring wheat at Minneapolis. There wasn't much in the way of fundamental news. Gary Hofer of Gary Hofer Commodities, says the big funds short positions are now less than six-thousand contracts at Chicago. Hofer: "Effectively rendering that group less of a factor in upcoming session, unless of course they all decide to take the long road and turn in to net buyers. Once again, the behavior of wheat prices the last couple of days has less to do with supply and demand balances and more to do with seasonal expectations and technically based traders changing positions. The reality is we are unlikely to see much fundamentally significant action for a few weeks. Meanwhile, the short term trend is upward." On Wednesday Chicago March wheat was up 3 ½ cents at 3-16. March corn down 1 3/4 at 2-05 3/4. Portland cash white wheat steady to a penny lower at mostly 3-96 with increased country selling a factor. New crop August white wheat mixed at 3-76. Club wheat 4-01. PNW HRW 11.5 percent protein lower ast 4-33. Dark northern spring 14% protein lower at 4-96. Export barley 105 dollars a ton. At auction this week 400-500 pound steers were 125 at Jerome, Idaho, with seven to eight weight steers 101-104. Still not enough Plains fed cattle sales for a trend this week. Boxed beef was steady to weak. Cattle futures were mixed. April live cattle up 55 cents at 86-10. March feeders up 22 at 98-72. March Class III milk up 75 cents at 14-70. I'm Bob Hoff and that's Marketline on the Northwest Ag Information Network.