Reuters — Chicago wheat futures rebounded on Monday on what one analyst characterized as “bottom-picking” after prices dropped more than six per cent to three-year lows on Friday.
Corn followed wheat higher, but soybeans prices remained low after news reports of Brazilian farmers planting at a rapid clip.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) late Monday pegged the current U.S. corn harvest at 23 per cent complete, compared with 19 per cent at the same point in the prior year. It rated 53 per cent of the current crop good or excellent, unchanged from a week earlier and up a percentage point from the same time in 2022.
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Chicago Board of Trade’s (CBOT) most-actively traded wheat contract was up more than four per cent, climbing 23-1/4 cents to end at $5.64-3/4 a bushel (all figures US$). Those gains come after soft red December wheat on Friday hit its lowest level since Sept. 30, 2020 at $5.40.
“We’re seeing some bottom-picking, and technical buying,” said Terry Reilly, the head grains and oilseeds analyst at Marex in Chicago, adding that the buying comes despite a rising U.S. dollar and reports of continued Ukrainian success in moving grain exports by rail and by sea.
Wheat prices had already weakened to their lowest levels since December 2020, pressured by abundant Russian wheat supplies, before USDA last week estimated a larger-than-expected domestic harvest.
Chicago corn chased wheat higher, rising 12 cents, more than 2.5 per cent, to end at $4.88-3/4 a bushel.
Despite the rallies in grains, soybean futures remained largely flat, ending two cents higher at $12.77 a bushel, which Jack Scoville of the Price Futures Group said he suspected was due to an industry report that farmers in Brazil — the world’s top soybean producer — were as of last week planting at the quickest pace ever for the period.
“It looks like it’s going to be a big bumper crop,” Scoville said.
USDA reported the current U.S. soybean harvest at 23 per cent complete, compared with 20 per cent last year. Crop condition had improved, with 52 per cent deemed good or excellent, compared with 50 per cent the prior week, but down from 55 per cent a year ago.
— Reporting for Reuters by Zachary Goelman in New York City; additional reporting by Michael Hogan in Hamburg and Naveen Thukral.
