Chicago | Reuters — U.S. wheat and corn futures fell on Wednesday as weak demand on the export market weighed on prices.
Soybeans ended in positive territory, but concerns that global purchasers will shift their demand for soybeans to South American suppliers as soon as possible kept the gains in check.
“You can at least write a story on the beans that export demand is still better than last year,” said Mark Schultz, chief analyst at Northstar Commodity. “It may not be as good as we want and our window of opportunity is pretty narrow right now to get the business.”
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Chicago Board of Trade November soybean futures settled up 1/2 cent at $13.72-1/2 a bushel (all figures US$).
CBOT December corn was down 2-3/4 cents at $6.78-1/4 a bushel and CBOT December soft red winter wheat was off 8-1/4 cents at $8.41-1/4 a bushel.
Wheat futures held support above the four-week low of $8.32-3/4 a bushel that the most-active contract hit on Tuesday.
Analysts were expecting a U.S. Agriculture Department report to show wheat export sales were in a range between 200,000 and 550,000 tonnes in the week ended Oct. 13. That compares with 211,823 tonnes a week earlier.
Corn export sales were forecast between 250,000 and 775,000 tonnes and soybean export sales between 1.7 million and 2.8 million.
As risks to global supply, wheat traders are also monitoring drought in Argentina and U.S. wheat belts, torrential rain in parts of Australia ahead of harvesting, and a slow planting pace in Ukraine.
— Reporting for Reuters by Mark Weinraub in Chicago; additional reporting by Gus Trompiz in Paris and Naveen Thukral in Singapore.
