Business Notes Trade

Hopes of reducing the huge U.S. grain stocks, which may reach 211 million metric tons this year, withered last week when the Soviet Union violated a long-term agreement and failed to buy the 3.85 million tons of U.S. wheat remaining in this year's quota. In an effort to clinch the deal by last Tuesday's deadline, the Reagan Administration had agreed in August to subsidize the wheat, but it was not enough to keep the Soviets from going to competing suppliers. Two days after letting the U.S. deal lapse, Moscow signed a five-year pact to buy at least 25 million tons of Canadian grain.