Chicago | Reuters — Chicago Board of Trade soybean futures ended higher on Tuesday on a technical bounce, amid a day of volatile trading and a flurry of news with conflicting pricing guidance, traders said.
Corn and wheat extended drops from the previous session – with the most-active wheat contract Wv1 dipping to the lowest prices since Nov. 29.
Earlier in the session, soybeans rose on news that soybeans inspected for export in the week ending Jan. 11 were on the higher end of trade expectations, and that U.S. soybean processors crushed more soybeans in December than any previous month on record.
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But the market’s confusion over wildly different forecasts for South America’s crop sent soy prices swinging during the day.
Traders are still processing Friday’s government report of larger-than-expected Brazilian crops, as well as bigger U.S. yield and production levels for the recently harvested crop.
The report is in stark contrast to other projections of Brazil’s soybean crop.
Aprosoja Brasil, an association representing thousands of grain farmers in the world’s largest supplier of soybeans, on Tuesday forecast 135 million metric tons of soybeans in the 2023/2024 production cycle – lower than recent private forecasters’ projections, Brazilian crop agency Conab’s expectations and a U.S. Department of Agriculture projection.
Such uncertainty is “the key fundamental that we’re going to be struggling to figure out going forward,” said Dan Basse, president of consultancy AgResource Company.
The most-active soybean contract on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) Sv1 ended the day up 3 cents, settling at $12.27-1/4 a bushel.
CBOT corn Cv1 ended down 3-1/2 cents at $4.43-1/2 a bushel, while wheat Wv1 settled down 14 cents at $5.82 a bushel.
–Reporting for Reuters by Peter Hobson in Canberra and Sybille de La Hamaide in Paris.
