Chicago | Reuters — Chicago Board of Trade corn futures dropped 1.3 per cent on Monday on expectations of a robust U.S. harvest this fall due to good crop weather across the U.S. Midwest, traders said.
“Weather remains highly beneficial for new crop development,” Sterling Smith, futures specialist at Citigroup in Chicago, said in a research note. “The long fund position has shrunk over the last five weeks and as long as the weather in the U.S. stays as it is there should be some liquidation.”
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U.S. wheat futures closed higher on Thursday on concerns over the limited availability of supplies for export in Russia, analysts said.
Good weather also weighed on soybean futures, while wheat sank to its lowest since Feb. 27 on spillover weakness from corn as well as slow export demand.
Analysts were expecting a U.S. Agriculture Department report on Monday afternoon to show good-to-excellent ratings for the U.S. corn crop at 75 per cent, matching the highest mid-June rating of the last 20 years.
“For most areas, the rainfall activity that we have been seeing has been pretty beneficial for the corn and bean development, that’s for sure,” said David Streit, meteorologist with Commodity Weather Group. “It’s hard to come up with any issues as far as the corn and beans are concerned.”
The benchmark CBOT July corn futures contract settled down six cents at $4.41 a bushel (all figures US$). Prices firmed early in the session but ran into technical resistance near the 10-day moving average. Support was seen at the four-month low of $4.39-1/2 hit late last week.
CBOT July soybeans were four cents lower at $14.21-3/4 a bushel. New-crop November soybeans eased 4-1/4 cents to $12.17 a bushel.
Analysts were expecting the weekly USDA crop conditions report on Monday afternoon to show that 74 per cent of the crop was rated good to excellent, the highest on record for mid-June.
The National Oilseed Processors Association said that U.S. processors crushed a larger-than-expected 128.824 million bushels of soybeans in June.
“The crush pace has been very strong this year but planting has been good and new-crop export business has been pretty quiet so far, so there is nothing particularly bullish about U.S. beans,” said Brett Cooper, senior manager for markets at FCStone Australia.
Chicago Board of Trade July soft red winter wheat was five cents lower at $5.81 a bushel.
Wheat firmed early in the trading session but turned lower after USDA said weekly export inspections of the grain were just 396,437 tonnes, below the low end of trade forecasts.
— Mark Weinraub is a Reuters correspondent covering grain markets from Chicago. Additional reporting for Reuters by Naveen Thukral in Singapore, Sybille de La Hamaide in Paris and Julie Ingwersen in Chicago.
