(AgWeek) – Chicago wheat dropped to a two-week low on Wednesday, easing for a fourth straight session, due to lack of demand for expensive U.S. cargoes and rapid progress of winter crop harvest.
Corn edged higher, recouping some of last session’s deep losses, but gains were capped by forecasts of crop-friendly drier weather in the U.S. Midwest.
Chicago Board of Trade September wheat fell as much as 1 percent to $5.65-1/2 a bushel by 0222 GMT, lowest since June 29.
Corn rose 0.2 percent to $4.29-1/4 a bushel, having ended the previous session down 2.8 percent, while soybeans fell 0.2 percent to $10.31-1/4 a bushel.
“Chicago wheat is around 70 cents a bushel overpriced, so there is a potential for more downside,” said one Sydney-based grains trader. “The harvest of hard red winter crop in the United States is progressing very well.”
Egypt’s state grain buyer, the General Authority for Supply Commodities, bought 235,000 tonnes of Russian and Romanian wheat in a tender for Aug. 21-31 shipment, paying an average price of $210.37 a tonne.
U.S. supplies are about $50 per tonne more expensive than wheat shipped out of theBlack Sea region.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that 65 percent of the hard red winter crop has been harvested as compared with 55 percent a week ago.
The gains in corn futures were capped by forecasts of crop-friendly weather.
Meteorologists said extended forecasts showed drier conditions in the eastern portion of the U.S. Corn Belt and rains in the western part, which were likely to benefit developing corn and soybean crops.
Heavy rains during the past three months amid the El Nino weather pattern have left pools of water on some U.S. fields, limiting corn and soybean yield potential and reducing wheat grain quality, while propelling prices higher.
The USDA on Monday reduced its assessment of soybean crop conditions and left corn conditions unchanged.
The market is keeping a close watch on the U.S. grain transport situation with floods halting Illinois River barges.
The U.S. Coast Guard closed a 50-mile stretch of the Illinois River to all traffic on Tuesday as persistent heavy rains following the state’s wettest June on record swelled the waterway to within two feet of all-time highs in some areas.
Commodity funds sold a net 18,000 CBOT corn contracts on Tuesday. The funds were even in soybeans and sold a net 1,000 wheat contracts
