(Bloomberg) – Soybeans fell to a four-week low in Chicago on speculation that U.S. crops approaching maturity will escape further damage from heat or dry weather.
Twenty-six percent of soybeans in the main U.S. growing areas began dropping leaves as of Sept. 15, a sign of maturity, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said. The agency is set to release its first report of this season’s harvest progress on Sept. 23. Soybeans rose 6.5 percent since the start of July as heat and dry weather in the Midwest spurred the USDA to cut its production estimate to 3.149 billion bushels on Sept. 12, 7.9 percent less than forecast two months earlier.
“Now we are focusing on what the harvest is going to show us,” Arnaud Saulais, a broker at Starsupply Commodity Brokers in Nyon, Switzerland, said by telephone today. “Traders are pricing in that there could be good yields on soybeans.”
Soybeans for November delivery dropped 1.1 percent to $13.2525 a bushel at 5:14 a.m. on the Chicago Board of Trade. Prices headed for a 4.1 percent decline this week, set for the first drop in seven weeks. Futures trading volumes were 37 below the average for the past 100 days for this time of day, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. While the USDA has cut its domestic harvest forecast, production still will be 4.4 percent more than last year’s drought-curbed harvest, the agency says.
No “significant” cold that could damage crops are in the forecast, DTN said in a report yesterday. Some areas of the Midwest were expected to receive rain today, National Weather Service data show.
Corn for December delivery fell 0.4 percent to $4.5775 a bushel, set for a 0.3 percent decline this week, a third straight drop. Farmers had harvested about 4 percent of corn crops as of Sept. 15, behind the five-year average pace of 10 percent, according to the USDA.
Wheat for delivery in December dropped 0.6 percent to $6.5325 a bushel, heading for the first weekly advance in three. Futures climbed 1.6 percent yesterday, the most since Aug. 26, as the USDA reported U.S. export sales jumped 30 percent from a week earlier. In Paris, milling wheat for November delivery fell 0.3 percent to 185.25 euros ($250.74) a metric ton on NYSE Liffe.
