July wheat traded 3 3/4 cents lower in overnight action. The dollar was lower overnight and crude oil was slightly higher.

Wheat came under selling pressure throughout the day yesterday with the July contract making a new low for 2008. Moderate weakness continued overnight in old and new crop contracts. Traders say that selling has been mainly by locals, which has triggered commission house selling and sell stops. They add that this pressure is coming from improved US weather for all crops. Japan and Jordan have joined Iraq on the tender calendar this week. EU farm policymakers are proposing to shift subsidies away from farmers with larger holding. This is expected to meet resistance from nations such as Great Britain, where the farming sector is dominated by large landholders. The USDA will issue its weekly Export Sales Report this morning at 7:30 Central. The May wheat futures contract expired yesterday. Ukraine's president is urging the government to cancel grain export restrictions by the end of the week. RICE: The July contract finished limit down yesterday. Trader credited the break to easing supply concerns in Asia, despite the apparent loss of exports from Myanmar and the spreading humanitarian crisis there. The May rice futures contract expired yesterday.

The past 24 hours have seen widespread rain from the latest system to move through the central US. However, as expected this system has stayed to the south with moderate to heavy rains falling from central Texas into the Delta and mostly light to moderate rains extending through southern Illinois into Indiana over the past 24 hours. Oklahoma also received moderate rains overnight. Forecasts call for mostly dry conditions across all major growing areas over the next two days. Cooler than normal temperatures are expected over the next few days in the northern and western Corn belt along with most of the Great Plains. Cool temperatures should gradually shift to the east to cover most of the central and eastern soft red belt from Tuesday through Saturday. The eastern Plains and western Corn Belt should see normal temperatures at that time with the extreme southwestern wheat belt trending well above normal. Jordan is tendering for 100,000 tonnes of hard wheat from any origin with a deadline of May 28th. Japan is tendering for just 60,000 tonnes of wheat on its regular weekly tender. Iraq issued another tender for at least 50,000 tonnes of wheat earlier this week. After their last such tender they ended up buying 450,000 tonnes.

Weekly export sales for wheat, released before the open today, came in at 120,700 metric tonnes for the current marketing year and 443,600 for the next marketing year for a total of 564,300 metric tonnes.