(Reuters) – Chicago soybeans rose for the fourth consecutive session on Tuesday to hit a two-week high, buoyed by strong demand for U.S. shipments in the domestic market as well as from overseas buyers.
Wheat climbed to its highest in more than three weeks on short-covering and a slowdown in supplies from the Black Sea region, while corn gained more ground, tracking the strength in wheat.
Chicago Board Of Trade March wheat rose 0.6 percent to $5.36 a bushel by 0307 GMT, just below the session high of $5.38-1/4 a bushel, the highest since Jan. 22. Wheat closed up 2.3 percent on Friday.
U.S. markets were closed for a holiday on Monday.
March soybeans added 0.5 percent to $9.95-1/2 a bushel, having firmed 0.7 percent on Friday, and March corn gained 0.2 percent to $3.88 a bushel.
“The news out of the Black Sea is that exports are going to be lower and that has put a little bit of support on the market,” said Graydon Chong, senior grains analyst at Rabobank. “This puts origins such as Australia in a more competitive position.”
Still, Russia may export more than 2 million tonnes of wheat between February and June as traders have to fulfil previously agreed contracts despite recently imposed export curbs, SovEcon agriculture analysts said.
The Russian government has been trying to cool domestic wheat prices, boosted by the rouble’s slump against the dollar, with informal curbs on exports since Dec. 1, to which it added an export tax from Feb. 1.
Australian wheat was offered lowest at $279.70 a tonne, including cost and freight free out, in a tender from Iraq’s state grains board to buy at least 50,000 tonnes of hard wheat.
U.S. soybean processors probably maintained a healthy crushing pace in January as they scrambled to keep up with a surge in domestic demand.
Soybean crushings were expected to come in at 162.673 million bushels in the National Oilseed Processors Association’s monthly report set for release on Tuesday, according to the average estimate in a Reuters poll.
Large speculators cut their net long position in CBOT corn in the week to Feb. 10, regulatory data released on Friday showed.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s weekly commitments of traders report also showed that noncommercial traders, a category that includes hedge funds, trimmed their net short position in CBOT wheat and increased their net short position in soybeans.
