* Corn, soy pressured by improving U.S. harvest weather
* Soy market choppy, rallying at times on export demand
* Wheat climbs, hits one-month high as dollar retreats (New throughout; updates prices, adds quote; changes dateline from previous HAMBURG/SYDNEY; changes byline)
By Julie Ingwersen
CHICAGO, Oct 15 (Reuters) – Chicago Board of Trade corn futures fell on Wednesday as traders booked profits following a two-day surge, driven by U.S. harvest delays, that lifted the market to a one-month high, brokers said.
Wheat climbed to a one-month top, buoyed by a setback in the U.S. dollar and chart-based buying, while soybeans were lower in seesaw trade.
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At the CBOT, as of 12:15 p.m. CDT (1715 GMT), December corn was down 4-1/4 cents at $3.52-3/4 per bushel after climbing to $3.58-1/4, its highest level in six weeks.
December wheat was up 3-3/4 cents at $5.13 a bushel and November soybeans were down 1-3/4 cents at $9.63 a bushel.
Corn and soybeans were pressured by forecasts for clearing skies in the U.S. Midwest after a week of rain that stalled fieldwork, especially in southern areas. Producers are expected to pick up the pace through the end of this month.
“The rains have moved off to the east of the Corn Belt. You now have 15 days of sunshine in front of you. The western belt will start harvesting corn heavily. They are still doing beans now,” said Roy Huckabay of the Linn Group, a Chicago brokerage.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said the U.S. soybean harvest was 40 percent complete as of Sunday, well above market expectations for 31 percent, but behind the five-year average of 53 percent.
The corn harvest was farther behind, at 24 percent, compared with the five-year average of 43 percent.
CBOT soybeans traded both sides of unchanged in choppy action. Support from strong export demand and profitable cash crushing margins offset pressure from better-than-expected progress in the harvest of a record-large U.S. crop.
“The export demand is strong. We have got record sales on the books as we start the 2014/15 crop year,” said Brian Basting, an analyst with Advance Trading in Bloomington, Illinois.
“We saw (weekly U.S.) export shipments that came out yesterday were above 50 million (bushels), and that could move higher in the fall,” Basting said.
CBOT December wheat rallied from early declines and reached $5.16-1/4 a bushel, its highest level in a month, with technical buying accelerating as the contract surpassed last week’s top of $5.11-3/4.
Wheat got a lift as the dollar fell against a basket of currencies after weak U.S. economic data heightened concerns that the Federal Reserve would delay its first rate hike.
“Buy-stops are being hit (in wheat), probably propagated by the strong break in the dollar. That currency market has been a friend to the wheat market here. It’s making us more competitive,” said Mike Zuzolo of Global Commodity Analytics in Atchison, Kansas.
Prices at 12:13 p.m. CDT (1713 GMT)
LAST NET PCT
CHG CHG
CBOT corn 352.25 -4.75 -1.3%
CBOT soy 963.00 -1.75 -0.2%
CBOT meal 327.40 3.40 1.1%
CBOT soyoil 32.34 -0.53 -1.6%
CBOT wheat 513.00 3.75 0.7%
(Additional reporting by Michael Hogan in Hamburg and Colin
Packham in Sydney; editing by David Clarke and Gunna Dickson)
