- Wheat falls for 4th session on dollar, supply pressure
- Soymeal dips after climbing to 18-month high, beans down
Adds details, quotes
By Naveen Thukral
SINGAPORE, May 23 (Reuters) – Chicago wheat futures slid for a fourth consecutive session on Monday as the market was weighed down by ample global supplies and a strong dollar.
Soymeal, which climbed to an 18-month high on Friday after a four-session rally, edged lower while soybeans fell around half a percent.
The dollar got off to a steady start against a basket of major currencies on Monday, remaining within striking distance of a two-month peak after markets last week moved to price in a greater chance of an imminent hike in U.S. interest rates.
“Currencies are certainly impacting commodities,” said Phin Ziebell, agribusiness economist at National Australia Bank.
“Beans have some fundamental strength because of concerns over the crop in South American but there is lot of wheat in the world.”
Chicago Board of Trade most-active wheat contract Wv1 lost 0.2 percent to $4.66-3/4 a bushel by 0310 GMT, having given up more than 3 percent in four sessions.
Soybeans Sv1 fell 0.7 percent to $10.67-1/4 a bushel and soymeal SMv1 dropped 0.2 percent to $392 a short ton.
Corn Cv1 dropped 0.1 percent to $3.94-1/4 a bushel, after gaining 1.2 percent on Friday.
Soymeal has added 44 percent since the start of April as heavy rains have threatened the size and quality of harvests in Argentina, which accounts for almost half of global meal exports.
The market extended its recent gains as traders said they were worried exporters might not offer as much Argentine soymeal for delivery after August as they normally would.
Large speculators raised their net long position in CBOT corn futures in the week to May. 17, regulatory data released on Friday showed.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s weekly commitments of traders report also showed that noncommercial traders, a category that includes hedge funds, trimmed their net short position in CBOT wheat and raised their net long position in soybeans.
In news, high corn prices in Brazil should prompt producers in the main grain state of Mato Grosso to expand planting of the grain for the 2016/17 season that starts in September, the state’s deputy agriculture secretary Alexandre Possebon told Reuters.
Improved transport options via new roads and ports to the north of the state will also fuel expansion of soybean planting as the region gains quicker, cheaper access to export markets, he added.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, through its daily reporting system, said exporters struck deals to sell 125,000 tonnes of U.S. corn to Colombia.
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