(Businessweek) – Soybeans fell for a third session in Chicago as rains forecast for this week in South America may help improve growing conditions. Wheat and corn rose.
Growing areas in Brazil may get as much as 1.25 inches (3.2 centimeters) of rain in the next five days, according to a Commodity Weather Group forecast. Brazil is set to overtake the U.S. this year as the world’s largest soybean grower and exporter, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Brazilian farmers typically plant the oilseed starting in October for a harvest beginning in March.
“The key thing that the market is looking at right now is the crop and planting conditions on Brazil and Argentina,”Michael Creed, an agribusiness economist at National Australia Bank Ltd., said by phone from Melbourne today. “Rains forecast in Brazil may be pushing prices a bit lower.”
Soybeans for January delivery slid 0.9 percent to $15.4975 a bushel at 8 a.m. on the Chicago Board of Trade. Prices are down 13 percent from the record $17.89 reached Sept. 4 amid concern about the drought afflicting the U.S.
Corn for December delivery rose 0.5 percent to $7.4125 a bushel, rebounding from a drop of as much as 0.7 percent to $7.325, a two-week low. The grain fell 3.1 percent last week.
The U.S. securities industry canceled equity trading today as Hurricane Sandy barreled toward New York City. CME Group Inc., which owns the Chicago Board of Trade, said in a statement e-mailed today trading of all futures and options including grains will remain open except for U.S. equity index futures and equity index options.
Wheat for December delivery added 0.5 percent to $8.6825 a bushel, erasing a decline of as much as 0.4 percent. In Paris, January-delivery milling wheat gained 0.2 percent to 266 euros ($343) a metric ton on NYSE Liffe.
Farmers in Russia, last season’s third-largest wheat exporter, reaped 39.6 million tons of the grain as of Oct. 26, down 33 percent from a year earlier, according to the country’s agriculture ministry. The harvest is 99 percent complete.
To contact the reporters on this story: Luzi Ann Javier in Singapore at ljavier@bloomberg.net; Whitney McFerron in London at wmcferron1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Claudia Carpenter at ccarpenter2@bloomberg.net
