Wheat up as rains threaten US crop, corn struggles on planting hopes
Category: Grains
(Reuters) – May 18 Chicago wheat futures edged up on Monday, rising for a third session out of four with heavy rains across the key U.S. growing regions threatening winter crop yields.
Chicago Board of Trade most-active corn contract was unchanged at $3.65-1/2 a bushel by 0300 GMT and soybeans rose 0.2 percent to $9.55 a bushel.
Wheat climbed 0.4 percent to $5.13-1/4 a bushel.
“U.S. weather is critical for corn and soybeans, plantings are going on track or better,” said Paul Deane, senior agricultural economist at ANZ Bank.
“Wheat is probably consolidating, we have news of Russia cutting taxes and it has still been able to hold on to gains which tells us that the market has found a bit of bottom here.”
Russia lifted the duty on wheat exports on Friday to help domestic producers and the government said the move would boost overseas sales by one million tonnes.
But wheat prices drew support from fears of excessive rains in the southern Plains wheat belt in the United States that are forecast to continue this week. Commodity funds hold a massive net short position in CBOT wheat.
Large speculators trimmed their net short position in CBOT corn futures in the week to May. 12, regulatory data 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.
Traders are now waiting for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s weekly planting and crop progress report scheduled to be released later on Monday for further direction.
As of May 10, U.S. corn seeding reached 75 percent complete, up 20 points from the week before and the five-year average of 57 percent for the first full week of May.
The U.S. National Oilseed Processors Association said its members crushed 150.363 million bushels of soybeans in April, the most ever for the month. The figure topped an average of analyst estimates for 147.8 million bushels.
