May 11 (Bloomberg) -- Wheat prices slipped for the first time in five sessions as the winter-crop harvest approached, signaling a rise in grain supplies in the U.S., the world’s biggest producer.
Growers may harvest 1.54 billion bushels of winter wheat starting this month, down 18 percent from last year, a Bloomberg News survey of 14 analysts showed. Prices tend to decline at this time of year because the harvest adds to supplies, analysts said. Wheat still has gained 11 percent since the end of March on concern that adverse weather may curb yields.
“Going into harvest is seasonally a period when the market backs off,” said Jim Hemminger, a risk-management specialist at Top Third Ag Marketing in Chicago. “It’s the market anticipating harvest pressure.”
Wheat futures for July delivery fell 0.25 cent to $5.9075 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade. The price had gained more than 7 percent in the previous four sessions.
Futures climbed in the past four weeks after flooding delayed seeding in North Dakota, the largest U.S. producer of spring wheat, and freezing weather hurt plants in Oklahoma, the second-biggest grower of winter varieties behind Kansas.
Some investors are squaring their futures positions before the U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasts global supply and demand tomorrow, Hemminger said. The report will provide the USDA’s first production estimate for this year’s winter crop.
Wheat prices have dropped 3.3 percent this year on increased global output and declining demand for U.S. grain.
Exports Rise
The USDA inspected 11.4 million bushels of wheat for export in the week ended May 7, up 7.6 percent from the previous week. Still, the amount inspected last week was the second-lowest since Feb. 26, government data show.
Losses were curbed after a farming group in Argentina said growers would seed the country’s smallest wheat crop in almost a century as fields suffer from drought and farmers, strapped for cash after their soy and corn crops failed, reduce spending.
Wheat is the fourth-biggest U.S. crop, valued at $16.6 billion last year, behind corn, soybeans and hay, government data show.
To contact the reporter on this story: Tony C. Dreibus in Chicago at Tdreibus@bloomberg.net.
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