Soybeans Drop as Warm Weather May Speed Up Harvest

October 1st, 2013

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Category: Grains, Oilseeds

(AgWeb) – Soybeans fell in Chicago, paring a first quarterly gain in four, on speculation warm Midwest weather will allow the U.S. harvest to accelerate. Corn rose before a U.S. government inventory report.

Temperatures may reach 80 degrees Fahrenheit (26 degrees Celsius) in the Midwest early this week before cooling by the weekend, QT Weather said in a report. The soybean harvest was 3 percent complete in the main U.S. growing areas as of Sept. 22, behind the five-year average. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is scheduled to update its weekly crop progress report today. While the USDA cut its output forecast this month to 3.15 billion bushels, production still will be 4.4 percent more than last year, when drought hurt crops.

“America’s farmers have begun gathering what is likely to be one of the top five soybean harvests amid overall mild autumn weather,” Arnaud Saulais, a broker at Starsupply Commodity Brokers in Nyon, Switzerland, said in an e-mailed report.

Soybeans for delivery in November declined 0.3 percent to $13.155 a bushel at 5:53 a.m. on the Chicago Board of Trade. The oilseed advanced 5.1 percent since the end of June on concern dry weather would reduce output in the U.S., set to be this year’s second-largest producer after Brazil.

In a separate report today, the USDA may say U.S. soybean stockpiles as of Sept. 1 were 127 million bushels, a nine-year low, according to a Bloomberg survey. Corn inventories were 694 million bushels, the lowest in 17 years, analysts said.

Corn for delivery in December rose 0.3 percent to $4.5525 a bushel. The grain lost 11 percent since the end of June, heading for a fourth straight quarterly retreat that would be the longest slump since 2009. U.S. farmers may harvest a record 13.8 billion bushels this season, helping replenish stockpiles after last year’s drought, USDA data show.

Wheat for delivery in December slipped 0.1 percent to $6.825 a bushel. The grain climbed 3.8 percent since the end of June after three straight quarterly losses. In Paris, milling wheat for delivery in November rose 0.3 percent to 194 euros ($262) a metric ton on NSYE Liffe.

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