Chicago | Reuters—Soy and corn futures turned lower on Friday after the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s supply and demand report confirmed the advancing harvests in the U.S. will be some of the largest on record.
Wheat futures also lost ground after the USDA raised its global wheat supply outlook, though traders continue to eye overly dry weather and escalating tensions in the Black Sea breadbasket region.
CBOT corn Cv1lost2-3/4 cents at $4.15-3/4 a bushel, down 2.11 per cent for the week. Soybeans Sv1fell 9-1/4 cents at $10.05-1/2 a bushel, settling down 3.1 per cent for the week.
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U.S. grains: Soy futures top one-week high, US crop outlook limits gains
Chicago Board of Trade soybean futures hit their highest level in more than a week on Thursday as technical buying helped the market recover from a three-month low reached on Monday, analysts said.
The most-active wheat contract on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) Wv1settled down 4-3/4 cents at $5.99 a bushel, ending up 1.5 per cent for the week.
U.S. farmers produced even more corn than expected this year, the USDA said, expanding its forecast for the nation’s second-biggest harvest ever.
Though the USDA trimmed its soybean production forecast, the crop is still expected to be a record.
Analysts said the market’s attention quickly shifted elsewhere following the report.
“It was an uninspiring report,” Sherman Newlin, broker at Risk Management Commodities, said. “We’ll go back to trading outside markets, weather and exports.”
Traders are closely monitoring rain relief for corn and soy planting in parched regions of Brazil and Argentina as well as optimal harvest weather in the U.S.
On Friday morning, the USDA confirmed export sales of 577,928 metric tons of corn for shipment to unknown destinations in the 2024/25 marketing year.
In wheat, the USDA raised its global ending-stocks outlook from last month and slightly trimmed its Russian wheat harvest expectations.
Weather is not hampering Russia’s winter grain sowing or harvesting, officials said on Friday, despite the drought that analysts estimate has slowed fieldwork.
Uncertainty about Black Sea exports has also increased amid a wave of Russian attacks on Ukraine’s ports, which sources say have pushed up shipping insurance costs.
—Additional reporting for Reuters by Gus Trompiz in Paris and Naveen Thukral in Singapore
