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Futures File: Weather or not: Wheat rallies

Wheat futures have rallied more than $1/bushel in the last month – a nearly 20% increase in total contract value. Depressed prices from December through March left room for a positive bounce should something bullish begin to percolate. Drought-stricken wheat country in the western plains was a big reason for the rally early on, but there have been rains touching down in some key spots over the last three weeks. The rains were not all-encompassing but enough to put a lid on a rally based on domestic weather, which seemed to be the case. However, fresh weather news from outside the ...

March Real Estate Transactions

Ward County — 3100 11th Ave. SE, Lot B7, 1972 manufactured home, Tiffany Brewer to Jimmy and Wendy Hendrickson, $1,500. — 3100 11th Ave. SE, Lot E18, 1983 manufactured home, Jonathan Frank to Joshua Garozzo, $12,500. — 2900 Valley Street, Lot 77, manufactured home, Chasity Overholt to Dalton Austin-Beeter, $14,000. Minot — 715 22nd Ave. NW, 1963 one-story house, Nancy Hodge to Blake Meyer, deeded price $188,000. — 1013 6th St. SW, 1949 one-story house, Mountain Prime 2008 to Kevin and Jennifer Winn, deeded price $173,500. — 1211 1st St, SW, 1915 two-story house, ...

Futures File

Mayday: This is cocoa, we’re going down The mystery knock on cocoa’s door this past week did not leave a bouquet of flowers or candy. Cocoa prices have plummeted nearly 30% in just two weeks, topping out at almost $12,000 per ton back on April 19 for the most-active contract and falling to a low this past week of $6,990 per ton before recovering Friday morning. A 40% drop from the all-time high to the most recent low. The runup in prices attributed to the extreme drought and heat in the cocoa-producing West African nations, especially Ghana and the Ivory Coast, are the fundamental ...

City of Minot March building permits

– Gary Belgarde, Belgarde Concrete, 1926, 35th St. NW, single family home with attached garage, $170,000. – Ivi Carvalho, Belgarde Concrete, 2827 10th St. NW, single family residence, $177,000. – City of Minot, Craft Builders, 1025 31st St. SE, reframe office to enlarge existing office. – North Star Community Credit Union, Wild CRG, Ltd., 2150 15th St. NW, 15,217-square-foot, two-story bank, $5.8 million. – H & K Properties, Hieb Construction, 2080 36th Ave. SW, remodel, partition walls, $2.6 million. – Star Rentals, Trillium Development, 523 30th St. NW, cell tower ...

Futures File

Flour power: Wheat futures up Wheat futures were up across the board this week with a strong move that broke through several technical resistance levels. July KC Wheat futures were trading around $6.50 Friday morning, up 11% on the week. July Chicago Wheat futures were trading near $6.25 and up 10% for the week as well. The wheat market has been stuck in the doldrums since the first of the year, trading sideways to lower, and the rally this week moved prices back to where they started the year. Fundamental reasons for the move carry the triple threat of supply worries, increased ...

Futures File

Markets react to Middle East hubbub Iran and Israel traded missile/drone fire in the last week which could be the beginning of a more serious geopolitical issue with the effects reaching far beyond the Iron Dome, or it could just be another brick in the wall of Middle East scuffles that bring pain and discomfort in the short term for those immediately affected but change nothing fundamentally in the long term for themselves or the rest of the world. What did the markets think? They were apathetic. Crude oil prices jumped higher initially on both attacks but faded the move ...