Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Wheat Tops $12 a Bushel for First Time on Rising Food Demand

Remember, this is not the stuff they trade in Minneapolis, that's fetching the highest nominal price ($24.00) ever for wheat.
(but the CBOT trades an awful lot more)
From Bloomberg:

Wheat climbed above $12 a bushel for the first time in Chicago, as investors poured money into agricultural commodities on signs that crop production isn't keeping pace with demand.

Global wheat stockpiles probably will fall to a 30-year low this year, while corn inventories are headed for the lowest since 1984, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Feb. 8. Almost $1.5 billion flowed into farm commodities in the week to Feb. 19, investment bank UBS AG said yesterday. The UBS Bloomberg Constant Maturity Commodity Index of 26 raw materials has jumped 15 percent this year.

...``We came in after the weekend and had a bunch of perceived demand news on wheat,'' said Clark Neighbors, a commodities broker at Bump Investor Services in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. ``Minneapolis wheat still continues to be the main player.''