(Reuters) – May 3 U.S. soybean futures climbed tom their highest in more than 15 months on Tuesday, rising a third straight session as crop-damage in Argentina and fund buying drove prices higher.
Corn gained as well, despite U.S. farmers likely boosting planting. Wheat also rose, tracking the other two grains.
Chicago Board of Trade most-active soybean contract climbed as much as 0.6 percent to $10.49-1/2 a bushel, the highest since January last year.
Corn rose 0.4 percent to $3.93-1/4 a bushel. Wheat added 0.2 percent to $4.88-1/2 a bushel.
“Soybeans were stronger as investors raised bullish bets to a two-year high,” ANZ said in a research note.
“Corn found some support despite speculation that favorable weather in the U.S. would boost planting.”
Argentina lost an estimated 9 million tonnes of soybeans in April storms that swamped the Pampas farm belt, an analyst with the state weather agency said on Monday, forecasting a 15 to 16 percent drop in output from the world’s third-largest exporter.
The sun has come out too late to help the hardest hit areas, and importers such as China are already looking to the United States to make up for a likely drop in Argentine supply.Rival exporter Brazil shipped an unprecedented 10.1 million tonnes of soybeans in April, eclipsing the previous record of 9.8 million tonnes set in June 2015, Trade Ministry data showed.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture in a weekly crop progress report said soybean plantings were eight percent complete, as compared with a five-year average of six percent.
Corn plantings were 45 percent complete, sharply above an average pace of 30 percent by this time of the year, the agency said.
Buying in corn has been kept in check by forecasts for dry weather across the U.S. Midwest. If realized, the weather outlook would allow farmers to resume their planting after storms drove them from fields for much of the past week.
The USDA pegged winter wheat’s condition at 61 percent good-to-excellent, better than last year’s 43 percent.
Commodity funds were net buyers of CBOT soybean futures contracts on Monday and net sellers of corn and wheat, traders said.
Trader estimates of net fund buying in soybeans ranged from 6,000 to 8,000 contracts. They were even to net sellers of 2,000 contracts in wheat and even to net sellers of 4,000 contracts in corn.
