Chicago | Reuters — U.S. wheat futures fell for the fourth straight day on Thursday on optimism about a deal that could lead to the resumption of Ukrainian Black Sea grain exports, traders said.
Corn futures rose for the sixth time in seven sessions on growing concerns about hot weather stunting crop development in the U.S. Midwest during the key pollination phase.
“The corn market is trading higher again this morning… watching the weather forecast that is not calling for much rain in the drier areas of the country,” Tomm Pfitzenmaier, analyst for Summit Commodity Brokerage, said in a note to clients.
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Prices for corn and wheat have retreated from the near record peaks they hit in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but were still trading well above year-ago levels as global trade flows remained disrupted.
Soybean futures ended lower after trading both sides of unchanged, as concerns about a weakening global economy cooling demand seeped through the market. Soybean prices have crumbled after coming within a nickel of all-time highs in June and now were trending about 65 cents lower than a year ago.
Chicago Board of Trade December corn futures settled up 5-3/4 cents at $6.01 a bushel (all figures US$).
CBOT September soft red winter wheat was 15-3/4 cents lower at $7.95 a bushel while CBOT November soybeans dropped 8-1/2 cents to $13.41 a bushel.
Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the United Nations are due to sign a deal next week aimed at resuming Ukraine’s grain exports.
“Ukraine really needs high-volume ocean shipping to move out its grain exports, a sea channel would be a major development, perhaps enabling Ukraine to put large volumes of grains into the world market,” said Matt Ammermann, StoneX commodity risk manager.
The potential for a pick-up in Ukraine’s pace of shipping outweighed a U.S. Agriculture Department report that showed weekly export sales of wheat at their highest since March 2020.
— Reporting for Reuters by Mark Weinraub in Chicago; additional reporting by Michael Hogan in Hamburg and Naveen Thukral in Singapore.
