Wheat futures prices dropped and cattle futures climbed Thursday as an intense winter storm system muscled into the Southern Plains, bringing badly needed moisture to the winter wheat crop and slowing livestock marketings. On other commodity markets Thursday, orange juice futures fell sharply; most energy futures rose; and precious metals retreated. Meteorologist Harvey Freese of Freese-Notis Weather Inc. in Des Moines, Iowa, said the winter storm was likely to bring the largest snowfall amounts in two years to the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles. Snow amounts of up to five inches were already reported in Texas on Thursday afternoon and the precipitation was expected to continue into Saturday, Freese said. Snow and rain was expected to spread over a wide area, including western Kansas and western Nebraska, before the system pushes north and east into the Midwest. The heavy downfall will help relieve the unusally dry conditions that have prevailed in winter wheat country since late autumn. ``This is the biggest rain event since September,'' said Katharina Zimmer, a grain-market analyst with Merrill Lynch Capital Markets Inc. ``They are likely to get as much snow today, tonight and tomorrow as they usually get in January or February,'' Wheat futures settled 1{ cents to 3\ cents lower on the Chicago Board of Trade with the contract for delivery in March at $3.97} a bushel, its lowest close since Sept. 28. Corn futures finished { cent to 1} cents higher with March at $2.42 a bushel; oats were { cent to 1{ cents lower with March at $1.38\ a bushel; soybeans were 1} cents to 3{ cents higher with January at $5.60} a bushel. Expectations for a storm-related slowdown in cattle marketings helped to boost live cattle futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, where contracts for February and April delivery posted new life-of-contract highs. Live cattle settled .05 cent to .58 cent higher with February at 78.80 cents a pound; feeder cattle were .15 cent lower to .20 cent higher with January at 83.77 cents a pound; live hogs were .18 cent lower to .30 cent higher with February at 49.60 cents a pound; frozen pork bellies finished 1.35 cents lower to .08 cent higher with February at 55.52 cents a pound. Orange juice futures plunged on the New York Cotton Exchange amid profit-taking by speculators who participated in the market's spectacular 60 percent runup following the Christmas freeze in Florida's citrus belt. ``It's about time we have a correction after a 75-cent move'' to $2 a pound, said analyst Celeste Georkakis of Cargill Investor Services Inc. Frozen concentrated orange juice futures finished 1.7 cents to 5.5 cents lower with January at $1.907 a pound. Petroleum futures ended mixed in volatile trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange as crude and heating oil bounced back from Wednesday's losses. West Texas Intermediate crude oil settled 6 cents to 66 cents higher with February at $22.76 a barrel; heating oil was .56 cent to 1.32 cents higher with February at 61.84 cents a gallon; unleaded gasoline was .71 cent lower to .91 cent higher with February at 60.71 cents a gallon. Gold and silver futures sank on selling that analysts attributed to abundant silver supplies and perceptions of an industrial slowdown, which would reduce demand for silver in industrial applications. Gold settled $1.80 to $2.50 lower with February at $411.20 a troy ounce; silver was 5.4 cents to 6.8 cents lower with March at $5.24 a troy ounce.
