March wheat opened 15 1/2 cents higher on the day at 687 and established an early range of 682 1/2 to 694. After trading at sharply higher levels during the second half of the overnight session, March wheat trimmed its gains to start the day session. Traders said that a lower dollar sparked buying overnight along with sharp gains in a broad array of commodity and equity markets.

Dry weather in the western Plains hard red winter wheat belt was also considered supportive after yesterday's scattered showers stayed in the eastern Plains. However, the dollar trimmed its losses into this morning and traders indicate that this may have generated some profit taking in wheat into mid morning. Egypt bought 175,000 tonnes of wheat, all from the US, on a tender that was announced yesterday. This total included 120,000 tonnes of soft white wheat and 55,000 tonnes of hard red winter wheat.

One analyst noted that the results were considered somewhat of a mixed bag in that while Egypt bought all of its wheat from the US, the overall total was smaller than is often the case on these tenders and the sale did not include any soft red winter wheat. However, this week's export sales were well above trade expectations at 943,400 tonnes for the current marketing year and 43,500 for next year for a total of 986,900. Soft red winter wheat sales increased to 78,100 tonnes this week from just over 9,000 tonnes last week. As of November 11, cumulative wheat sales stand at 64.1% of the USDA forecast for 2010/2011 versus a 5-year average of 66.7%. Sales need to average 424,000 tonnes each week to reach the USDA forecast.

Source: CBOT