(Reuters) – U.S. soybeans rose 0.6 percent on Friday, recouping previous session’s losses, while corn ticked up from a three-month low on position squaring ahead of the government’s quarterly stocks report.
Wheat rose 0.4 percent, but the market is on track for a second straight weekly decline with favourable crop weather aiding the U.S. winter crop planting.
“It is a bit of position squaring before the report,” said Lynette Tan, investment analyst at Phillip Futures in Singapore.
“Corn and soybean markets have been under pressure this week because of the ongoing harvest. Corn harvest is progressing at a much quicker pace than this time last year.”
U.S. corn stocks fell to the lowest level in eight years at the end of the 2011/12 season (Sept-Aug), analysts polled by Reuters said.
The 17 analysts surveyed expected the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s quarterly stocks report on Friday to show stocks as of Sept. 1 – also the ending stocks for the 2011/12 marketing year – at 1.113 billion bushels.
Chicago Board of Trade November soy rose 0.6 percent to $15.80-1/4 a bushel by 0318 GMT, while December corn gained 0.2 percent to $7.17-3/4 a bushel. December wheat added 0.4 percent to $8.59 a bushel.
November soybeans have given up more than 9 percent since the beginning of last week, the biggest 2-week slide in a year, while December corn has dropped more than 4 percent this week, falling for a fifth straight week.
December wheat is down 4.2 percent this week, extending losses from last week’s near 3-percent slide.
For the quarter, front-month soybeans are up 4.4 percent, rising for a fourth quarter in a row. Corn is up 6.8 percent, building on 4.4 percent gain in the last quarter amid shrinking world supplies. Wheat, which has been buoyed by expectations of Russian export curbs, has gained about 16 percent, its biggest quarterly rise since 2010.
There was support for the soybean market from the USDA’s weekly exports sales report. It said net export sales of U.S. soybeans last week hit a six-week high of nearly 800,000 tonnes and also reported an additional 110,000-tonne sale to China via its daily reporting system.
“U.S. soybean meal export sales were particularly strong last week, supporting our thesis that strong global meal demand remains a major factor supporting prices,” Luke Mathews, commodities strategist at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, said in a report.
In the wheat market, there was pressure from favourable weather for the winter crop planting.
Rain showers over the past week have enhanced the prospects for next year’s harvest of U.S. winter wheat and caused only a minor blip in harvesting corn and soybeans in what has been the nation’s worst drought in 56 years, an agricultural meteorologist said on Thursday.
Rainfall this week over nearly all areas of the drought-stricken U.S. Plains has greatly boosted prospects for autumn seeding of the 2013 hard red winter wheat crop.
