(Bloomberg) – Corn rose, capping the longest rally in a year, and soybeans jumped the most in 11 weeks on speculation that adverse weather threatens to reduce output in South America, bolstering demand for U.S. supplies.
About 50 percent of the crops in Argentina will be dry in the next 10 days after weekend rain stayed north of the main growing regions, Commodity Weather Group LLC said in a report. As much as a third of Brazil’s crops face a lack of rain, the forecaster said.
“Current weather trends are raising the odds that the South American crops will be reduced,” Dave Marshall, a farm- marketing adviser at Toay Commodity Futures Group LLC in Nashville, Illinois, said in a report. “Odds favor continued gains into the end of the year, as long as the South American weather forecasts don’t change.”
Corn futures for March delivery rose 2.2 percent to close at $6.3325 a bushel at 1:15 p.m. on the Chicago Board of Trade, the seventh straight gain and the longest rally since Dec. 29, 2010. Earlier, the grain reached $6.3675, the highest for a most-active contract since Nov. 17.
Soybean futures for March delivery rose 3.2 percent to $12.095 a bushel, the biggest advance since Oct. 11. It was the eighth straight gain, the longest rally since mid-July. Earlier, the oilseed reached $12.15, the highest since Nov. 8.
Corn is the biggest U.S. crop, valued at $66.7 billion in 2010, followed by soybeans at $38.9 billion, government data show. The CBOT was closed yesterday for a public holiday.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jeff Wilson in Chicago at jwilson29@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Steve Stroth at sstroth@bloomberg.net
