(Reuters) – U.S. soybeans gained for a fourth consecutive session on Thursday, trading close to a two-year top as the market was buoyed by forecasts of a dry growing season in the United States.
Corn and wheat futures, which have risen for the last six sessions, ticked lower as the grain markets took a breather.
“Strong gains that we have seen in soybeans are in response to some of the supply concerns in South America and there is nervousness that U.S. won’t perform well because of La Nina weather,” said Phin Ziebell, agribusiness economist at National Australia Bank.
“Where we go from here will all depend on what happens to the U.S crop.”
Chicago Board of Trade most-active soybean contract edged 0.1 percent higher at $11.78-1/2 a bushel by 0221 GMT. The market rallied 3.2 percent on Wednesday when prices hit their highest since June 2014 at $11.89-1/4 a bushel.
Corn slid 0.4 percent to $4.29-3/4, having gained 0.8 percent in the previous session and wheat dropped 0.1 $5.18-3/4 a bushel, having closed up 2.1 percent on Wednesday.
Forecasts for dry weather due to a La Nina weather pattern across key U.S. soybean growing regions have been supporting prices.
Grain markets are experiencing one of the steepest U.S. planting-season rallies on record, propelled by acute demand, crop weather concerns, currency gyrations and speculative buying.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has announced spot soybean sales for three days in a row, highlighting the problems that excessive rains have wreaked on the harvest in Argentina.
The USDA said early on Wednesday that exporters booked deals to ship another 132,000 tonnes of soybeans to China during the 2015-16 crop year. China is the top buyer of the oilseed.
Funds have been actively buying agricultural commodities, fuelling the rally in prices, and were net buyers of CBOT soybean, corn and wheat contracts on Wednesday.
Analysts estimated that funds bought a net 20,000 soybean contracts, 8,000 to 15,000 corn contracts and 6,000 to 8,000 wheat contracts.
In news that could provide further gains, Southern Russia, key for wheat exports via the Black Sea, may reap a record wheat crop but of lower quality compared to last year, Dmitry Rylko, the head of agriculture consultancy IKAR said on Wednesday.
Russia, a major global wheat exporter to North Africa and the Middle East, was hit by excessive rains at the end of last week which raised concerns among some analysts about the quality of its wheat crop.
