(Businessweek) – Wheat advanced, snapping three days of losses, after a report showed that crop conditions worsened from a week earlier in the U.S., the biggest exporter.
Wheat for March delivery climbed 0.2 percent to $6.54 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade by 11:50 a.m. Singapore time. Futures have lost 16 percent this year as global output heads for a record 706.38 million metric tons, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
An estimated 63 percent of the crop that will be harvested beginning in May was in good or excellent condition as of Nov. 17, compared with 65 percent a week earlier, the USDA said yesterday. The crop may have been affected by tornadoes on Nov. 17, according to AccuWeather Inc.
“A reduction in crop conditions will provide support for prices,” Vanessa Tan, an analyst at Phillip Futures Pte, said by phone from Singapore. “There may have been some adverse impact” from tornadoes that swept through the U.S. Midwest.
Plantings in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and Michigan“might be sensitive,” Evan Duffey, a meteorologist at AccuWeather said yesterday. Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and Michigan account for 10 to 15 percent of U.S. winter wheat plantings, he said.
Soybeans for January delivery was little changed at $12.8925 a bushel. Corn for March delivery lost as much as 0.2 percent to $4.2025 a bushel, the lowest price since Nov. 8, before trading at $4.205.
