Wheat likely to fall as harvest nears

Reduced off-take coupled with easy availability of stocks pulled dara wheat and flour prices down by Rs 10-20 a quintal on Friday.

Radhey Shyam, a commodity expert, told Business Line that absence of bulk buying mainly dragged wheat and flour down.

Following fear of a drop in prices with harvest near-by, demand at present in the local market is quite low and only need-based buying is taking place in the market, he said. Traders expect that wheat prices may fall further by Rs 40-50 next week.

In the physical market, dara wheat prices eased by Rs 20 and quoted at Rs 1,500-1,505. Around 100 quintals of dara variety arrived from Uttar Pradesh and the stocks were directly offloaded at the mills. Mill delivery was at Rs 1,500, while delivery at the chakki was Rs 1,505. Desi wheat was quoted at Rs 2,700.

On the National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange, wheat futures showed a bearish trend. Wheat for April contracts decreased by Rs 15 and traded at 1,403 with an open interest of 2,860 lots. It had touched a high at Rs 1,416 earlier in the day.

May contracts went down by Re 1 to Rs 1,396. Wheat spot prices on the exchange went down by Rs 5 and traded at Rs 1,480.

Flour Prices

Following a downtrend in wheat, flour too went down by Rs 10 and quoted at Rs 1,725. Chokar witnessed the major fall, dropped by Rs 50 and sold at Rs 1,270.

Manual harvesting has started in some parts and wheat arrivals are likely to start within a week.

According to the reports, the Government may lower the floor price for wheat sales to private traders for exports from state warehouses to Rs 13,500 a tonne from Rs 14,800, plus taxes.

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