GRAINS-SOYBEANS TURN LOWER ON TRADE TENSIONS; CORN, WHEAT HOLD FIRM

(Agriculture.com) – U.S. soybean futures ended lower
on Thursday on worries about global trade tensions threatening
exports, analysts said, while wheat and corn firmed on
bargain-buying and ideas of tightening global supplies.
Chicago Board of Trade July soybeans settled down
4-1/2 cents at $10.18-1/2 per bushel. July wheat ended up
4-1/4 cents at $5.26-1/4 a bushel and July corn rose 1/2
cent to $3.94.
Soybean futures turned lower after the United States said it
would impose tariffs on aluminum and steel imports from Canada,
Mexico and the European Union, reigniting fears of a global
trade war.
The move came days ahead of a visit by U.S. Commerce
Secretary Wilbur Ross to China, the world’s biggest soy
importer. Ross is expected to try to get China to agree to firm
numbers to buy more U.S. goods during a June 2-4 visit to the
Chinese capital.
“It’s the start of these Chinese negotiations that
everybody’s worried about. It looks like the tariffs on steel
and aluminum on our partners are threatening enough that the
market is unsure what will happen in China,” said Dan Basse,
president of AgResource Co in Chicago.
The CBOT July soybean contract at times dipped below
its 200-day moving average near $10.17 as traders adjusted
positions on the last day of the month. The contract ended the
month down 30 cents, or about 3 percent.
CBOT July corn posted a monthly decline of 6-3/4 cents
or 1.7 percent, while July wheat ended the month up 15-3/4
cents or 3.1 percent.
Corn clung to modest gains on Thursday despite the trade
tensions with Mexico, a top buyer of U.S. corn. Mexico responded
to U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs by imposing wide-ranging
“equivalent” measures on farm and industrial products, including
pork, apples, grapes and cheese.
Corn found support from bargain buying a day after the July
contract hit its lowest level in a month on
better-than-expected crop ratings, and uncertainty about U.S.
crop weather after an unusually warm May.
“The weather has actually gotten more threatening over the
last two or three days,” Basse said, adding that U.S. corn and
soy crops “look good today, but that is not a barometer of where
they will finish.”
Wheat firmed, with the CBOT July contract rebounding from a
one-week low of $5.15-1/4 a bushel on technical buying and
worries about dryness in the Black Sea region, including Russia
and Ukraine.
Russia is expected to reduce its 2018 crop of winter wheat
and rye by around 10 percent from a year ago due to dry weather,
a state weather forecaster said.