Chicago | Reuters — U.S. wheat and corn futures jumped on Monday, with traders saying that exports from the Black Sea region will continue to be disrupted this week due to the fighting in Ukraine.
Soybean futures also rose sharply, following gains in the crude oil market that also stemmed from major ructions to energy shipments related to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
The benchmark Chicago Board of Trade May soft red winter wheat contract notched the biggest gain, surging 7.6 per cent and briefly touching its daily trading limit of 85 cents a bushel (all figures US$).
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Traders also noted buying by investment funds after all three commodities notched losses last week. The losses in corn snapped a streak of five straight weekly gains.
“Money rotated out of the ag commodities at times last week as chatter of peace talk progress raised the prospect of a resolution,” Arlan Suderman, chief commodities economist at brokerage StoneX, said in a note to clients.
“But Wall Street is more skeptical of a peace agreement today, giving it reason to reinstate risk premium into both the energy and the ag markets.”
CBOT May wheat settled up 55-1/2 cents at $11.19-1/4 a bushel.
“Today’s action may be the market realizing that this is no longer a short-term deal, but rather a long-term problem,” Charlie Sernatinger, global head of grain futures at ED+F Man Capital, said in a research note.
The World Food Programme said food supply chains in Ukraine were collapsing, with infrastructure destroyed.
CBOT May corn was up 14-1/2 cents at $7.56-1/4 a bushel, while CBOT May soybeans gained 23 cents to $16.91 a bushel.
The U.S. Agriculture Department said on Monday that weekly export inspections of corn totaled 1.466 million tonnes, up 28 per cent from a week earlier. Wheat export inspections rose to 330,632 tonnes from 307,218 tonnes.
— Reporting for Reuters by Mark Weinraub in Chicago; additional reporting by Michael Hogan in Hamburg and Naveen Thukral in Singapore.
