(Reuters) – Chicago corn dropped 0.8 percent on Monday, giving up some of last session’s gains and falling for seven out of eight days, as near-perfect crop weather in the U.S. Midwest buoyed expectations of record production.
Wheat rose for a second consecutive session on concerns about adverse weather in Russia’s Volga Valley and the southern U.S. Plains.
FUNDAMENTALS
* Corn is under pressure as benign conditions for recently planted maize in the U.S. Midwest have raised expectations for a record harvest this year.
* Wheat has also been pressured as the northern hemisphere’s harvest neared and as U.S. supplies struggled to compete on the global market with cheaper grain from other origins.
* But some traders said the recent pullback in wheat had been overdone in view of crop risks in the southern United States and Russia.
* Rains last week raised concerns about quality damage to the maturing U.S. crop while hot and dry conditions stressed crops in Russia’s Volga Valley.
* Large speculators cut their net long position in Chicago Board of Trade corn futures in the week to June. 3, 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, increased their net short position in CBOT wheat and cut their net long position in soybeans.
* Commodity funds on Friday bought a net 6,000 CBOT corn contracts, trade sources said. The funds sold 1,000 in soybeans and bought 2,000 in wheat.
MARKETS
* The dollar edged up against the yen in early trade on Monday thanks to upbeat U.S. employment data while the euro crept up from multi-month lows, continuing to shake off the impact from the European Central Bank’s monetary easing last week.
* Asian stocks basked in the glow of a record close on Wall Street after bright U.S. jobs data pointed to improving economic momentum.
