CROPS

End-of-year position adjustments coming up? Most very large futures traders are holding onto extremely heavy net short-sold positions in Chicago wheat. The other major wheat contracts in Kansas City hard red winter and Minneapolis spring also reflect net short speculative po- sitions, although less ponderous than Chicago.

Since this category of traders is known for rapidly shifting from one side of the ledger to the other periodically, this big bulge in net-sold positions will ultimately lead to a run to the upside for wheat prices, probably associated with some big volume days and a large dro...