The cancellation by Iraq of a wheat export order started the trading in a downward direction..
The bad news for wheat trade continued with the revelation of the worst week ever for US export sales of the grain.
The US, until this season the world's top wheat exporter, sold a negative 449,167 tonnes of wheat last week for 2014-15 delivery.
That is, cancellations of wheat orders exceeded new sales by 449,167 tonnes - the biggest negative figure, on a current season basis, on records going back 25 years.
'Major step backwards'
To be fair, many of the cancelled orders were switched to 2015-16, (which for the US starts in June and for most of the rest of the northern hemisphere in July).
US wheat export sales for 2015-16, at 852,900 tonnes, were well above market expectations.
Still, "the export sales report was negative for wheat", said Darrell Holaday at Country Futures.
"Wheat sales took a major step backwards with huge cancellations," CHS Hedging said, noting that export sales need to average (a positive) 121,000 tonnes to meet USDA expectations for the full 2014-15.
Five-year low
The figure gave a bit of strength back to wheat bears, who had been somewhat pressed earlier on, when some month-end short covering was encouraged by the weaker dollar and some concerns ahead of a key Kansas wheat tour.
"The Kansas wheat tour starts up next week, and some feel they'll see more of the poorer wheat evaluations as noted in recent condition ratings," CHS Hedging said.
But Chicago wheat for July, the best-traded contract, shed 2.0% to $4.47 a bushel, while the spot May lot dropped 1.9% to $4.67 a bushel – the weakest finish for a spot contract since June 2010.