March wheat finished 8 cents lower overnight. The dollar was higher.

March wheat finished marginally lower yesterday after failing to take out the previous day's highs. Traders indicate that outside markets pushed wheat substantially lower overnight on ideas that the US will continue to miss out on export business. Egypt is tendering for an unspecified amount of optional origin wheat overnight and traders await results. Continued strength in the dollar is said to be the greatest concern in terms of outside market influences on wheat. This is pricing wheat out of a substantial amount of the world's present export business. Weather in Western Australia is causing some scattered delays in harvest there with harvest proceeding at a rapid clip in Argentina. There are some concerns for quality with the harvest in Australia about two weeks behind a normal pace when the rains hit this week. Syria was a buyer of 100,000 tonnes of hard wheat from Russia today. This was a partial fill of a tender. The USDA will release the weekly export sales report this morning and traders are expecting another relatively soft number. Last week's sales dropped below the weekly rate needed to reach the USDA projection for the marketing year. This was the first time that has happened in several months.

Scattered wet weather in Australia is causing minor harvest delays. Dry weather continues in Argentina. In the US, cold air is expected to push down to the Ohio River Valley today with snow in Michigan and NE Ohio. Very cold air should remain in place through early Saturday in the north-central US along with dry conditions in most of the Plains and Midwest. Some snow is expected in the northern Plains this weekend. Rain may push into the central Midwest to start next week. Syria bought 100,000 tonnes of soft wheat from Russia on a partial fill of a tender. Bangladesh is tendering for 100,000 tonnes of wheat with a closing date of December 15th. Jordan bought 50,000 tonnes of wheat from Russia. This comes on a tender for 150,000 tonnes.