Grains-Wheat Up On Bargain Buying; Corn, Soy Choppy Awaiting USDA

(Agriculture.com) – U.S. wheat futures rose on Wednesday on bargain buying after a three-session sell-off pushed the Chicago Board of Trade September contract to a one-week low, traders said.

CBOT soybeans and corn were narrowly mixed, consolidating after recent declines and as investors awaited two key U.S.
government crop reports later this week.

As of 12:21 p.m. CDT (1721 GMT), CBOT September wheat was up 5-1/4 cents at $4.88-1/4 per bushel. August soybeans
were down 1 cent at $8.72 a bushel and September corn was up 1/4 cent at $3.61-1/2 a bushel.

Wheat rose the most, with the September contract up about 1 percent after falling in eight of the previous 10 trading sessions.

The wheat market has faced seasonal pressure from the ongoing U.S. winter wheat harvest and from falling prices in Russia, the world’s top exporter, despite poor weather curbing Russian crop prospects.

“There is just so much supply out there in the world, and with old-crop stocks, that there is no incentive to step in and buy the market,” said Brian Hoops, analyst with Midwest Market Solutions.

Minneapolis Grain Exchange (MGEX) spring wheat futures bucked the firm trend in CBOT wheat and continued to fall, posting fresh contract lows across the board. The breakdown in MGEX spring wheat reflects improving weather in the northern U.S. Plains and Canadian crop belts.

“We’ve got ideal weather moving forward, at least for the next seven to 10 days. It looks like a bumper crop coming at us in about six weeks,” said Joe Nussmeier, a broker with Frontier Futures in Minneapolis, noting that the northern Plains spring wheat harvest should start in early August.

Soybean futures were choppy, firming at times on hopes for a thaw in U.S. trade relations with China, the world’s biggest soy
importer. U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration unveiled a plan for a stronger security review process for foreign investors acquiring American technologies, softening its tone from previous remarks indicating it would specifically block Chinese investments.

But rallies were capped by generally favorable weather in the U.S. Midwest that has bolstered yield prospects for soybeans
and corn.

Traders were also bracing for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s acreage and quarterly stocks reports on Friday.

Analysts surveyed by Reuters on average expect the USDA to raise its estimates of U.S. 2018 corn and soybean plantings from its March forecasts, and to report multi-year highs in U.S. June 1 corn and soy stockpiles.