Reuters — Chicago grain and soybean futures ended higher on Friday after posting fresh lows earlier as traders anticipated hefty global supplies and kept an eye on weather in the U.S.
Bouts of short covering ahead of the weekend lifted contracts after corn, soy and wheat futures all struck multi-month lows this week.
Recent rains in the drought-hit U.S. Plains and forecasts for more have eased concerns about hard red winter wheat, though doubts about the state of the crop in the No. 5 exporter remain.
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The most-active wheat contract on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) gained 4-1/2 cents to settle at $6.33-3/4 a bushel (all figures US$). It touched $6.24-1/4 earlier in the week, the lowest since July 2021.
CBOT corn settled up 3-1/2 cents at $5.85 a bushel, recovering from $5.72 earlier in the week, a low not seen since July 2022.
Soybeans settled up 15-1/2 cents at $14.19-1/4 a bushel, bouncing back from a dip to $13.96-1/2 in the week, a low not seen since October 2022.
“We did have some good rains last weekend but still the big question is what kind of crop are we going to have in the southern Plains,” said Dale Durchholz, commodity analyst at Grain Cycles.
The corn market has been dented by concerns that a large Brazilian crop was diverting demand from the U.S.
A bumper Brazilian soybean crop is also expected to flow onto export markets, offsetting a drought-hit harvest in Argentina.
— Reporting for Reuters by Cassandra Garrison in Mexico City, Gus Trompiz in Paris and Naveen Thukral in Singapore.
