- Soybeans ease after climbing to highest in more than a week
- Forecasts of hot, dry weather across Midwest underpin prices
Adds comment, detail
By Naveen Thukral
SINGAPORE, July 13 (Reuters) – Chicago soybeans edged lower on Wednesday as the market took a breather after last session’s strong gains that were driven by forecasts of crop-damaging hot and dry weather across the U.S. Midwest.
Corn was little changed following a 1.5-percent rally on Tuesday, supported by a U.S. Department of Agriculture report showing tighter supplies of the feed grain.
The Chicago Board of Trade most-active soybean contract Sv1 slid 0.3 percent to $10.84 a bushel by 0220 GMT, after rallying over 3 percent in the last session. The market earlier hit its highest since July 5 at $10.97 a bushel.
Corn futures Cv1 gained 0.1 percent to $3.60-1/2 a bushel and wheat Wv1 gave up 0.1 percent to $4.38-1/4 a bushel.
“The market’s next concern is the forecast of adverse weather in the coming weeks when soybeans will in the pod-setting stage,” said Kaname Gokon at brokerage Okato Shoji in Tokyo. “Hot and dry weather will potentially reduce yields.”
Soybeans are drawing support amid worries about stressful crop conditions as forecasters said above-normal temperatures and near-normal to below-normal rainfall may spread across most of the U.S crop belt next week.
U.S. corn supplies will tighten more than expected in the coming months due to rising exports, but a bumper harvest will quickly re-stock grain bins, the USDA said on Tuesday.
The agency pegged 2015/16 U.S. corn stocks at 1.701 billion bushels, down 7 million bushels from its June estimate.
It predicted a big domestic soybean harvest would help offset rising overseas demand for U.S. supplies of the oilseed.
The USDA is likely to boost the already massive yield forecast in the coming months, according to historical data that show estimates of big crops tend to grow even larger as harvest time nears.
There is support for wheat with the outlook of lower production in France.
France’s farm ministry expects the country’s soft wheat production to shrink by almost 10 percent this year after heavy rain and limited sunshine hurt crops in the European Union’s biggest grain grower.
In its first estimate of 2016 soft wheat production on Tuesday, the ministry forecast a crop of 36.95 million tonnes, down 9.7 percent from 2015’s record volume of 40.9 million tonnes.
Commodity funds were net buyers of CBOT soybean, corn and wheat futures contracts on Tuesday. Traders’ estimates of net fund buying in soybeans ranged from 8,000 to 10,000 contracts and in corn from 3,000 to 6,000 contracts.
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