Wheat declined for the first time this week on concern the global economic recovery may be faltering, damping demand for commodities, and as increasing shipments from Russia intensified competition among exporters. December-delivery wheat fell as much as 0.5 percent to $7.8025 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade, before trading at $7.8375 at 2:38 p.m. Singapore time. Companies probably ordered less equipment in July as concern grew that the U.S. recovery was coming to a halt, according to the median forecast of 38 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News ahead of Commerce Department figures due today. Moody’s Investors Service cut Japan’s credit rating by one step, saying “weak” prospects for growth will make it difficult for the government to rein in its public debt burden. The drop in wheat prices “is just a knee-jerk reaction to what’s happening in the U.S. and the prospects for global growth,” Jonathan Barratt, managing director at Commodity Broking Services Pty., said by phone from Sydney today. Shipments from Russia, once the world’s second-largest exporter of wheat, are also intensifying competition among suppliers, pushing prices of the U.S. crop lower, Barratt said. Egypt, the biggest wheat importer, bought 180,000 metric tons of Russian milling wheat for shipment between Oct. 11 and 20, Nomani Nomani, vice chairman of the state-run General Authority for Supply Commodities, said yesterday in Cairo. Russia in July ended its export ban imposed since August 2010 after the worst drought in at least half a century slashed the nation’s harvests. Dimming Prospects In the U.S., the world’s largest exporter, a year-long drought from Kansas to Texas has created the driest conditions on record for farmers preparing to plant winter wheat, dimming crop prospects for a second straight year. The spring-wheat harvest in North Dakota, the biggest U.S. grower, is “coming in below producers’ expectations,” the North Dakota Wheat Commission said yesterday. In Texas, the winter-wheat crop that farmers will plant in September and October may not emerge from the soil if drought-stricken fields don’t get rain, according to an agricultural program at Texas A&M University in College Station. Wheat futures may resume a rally in Chicago as hot weather persists in the U.S., threatening yield prospects, Barratt said. Corn for December delivery slipped 0.2 percent to $7.42 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade, while soybeans for November delivery lost 0.1 percent to $13.96 a bushel. To contact the reporter on this story: Luzi Ann Javier in Singapore at ljavier@bloomberg.net. To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Poole at jpoole4@bloomberg.net

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