Wheat price slips 1 pct on bumper global supplies; soybeans firm
Category: Grains
(Reuters) – Chicago wheat fell 1 percent on Monday, pressured by ample global supplies, while soybeans edged up after declining for two sessions although expectations of historically high U.S. production limited gains.
Corn slid from Friday’s three-week top.
The Chicago Board Of Trade’s most active wheat contract dipped 1 percent to $4.40-1/4 a bushel by 0950 GMT while corn fell 0.5 percent to $3.42 a bushel, off a high of $3.44-1/4 hit on Friday.
Soybeans rose 0.3 percent to $10.07-1/4 a bushel, having closed down 1 percent on Friday.
Chicago wheat prices are under pressure from large global supplies, especially from the Black Sea region.
The Russian agriculture ministry has proposed reducing a floating wheat export tax to zero until July 1, 2017, Russian news agencies reported on Friday.
The ministry expects the crop to be at least 110 million tonnes, up 2 million tonnes from the previous record set in 2008, it said in a statement. “The record-high grain supply from Russia will more than offset the weather-related crop shortfalls in France and Germany,” Commerzbank said in a note.
In soybeans, the forecast for key growing areas of the U.S. Midwest showed moderate temperatures and some rain, beneficial for the final stages of development for the maturing crop. “Investors have continued to pare back their long positions as weather conditions in the Midwest are likely to remain near ideal during the final stages of soybean development,” said Tobin Gorey, director of agricultural strategy at Commonwealth Bank of Australia. “Conditions in the Delta region though are now becoming excessively wet. If a forecast drier period does not evolve later next week then quality declines may become a concern.”
The outlook for strong demand from top importer China has supported the soybean market in the past few weeks.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said on Friday private exporters reported the sale of another 261,000 tonnes of soybeans to unknown destinations for delivery in the 2016/17 crop year.
The Argentine soy planting area will shrink by up to 4 percent this year as farmers use more land to produce corn, analysts said, citing the government’s elimination of corn export taxes.
