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CHICAGO – Chicago wheat futures fell on Thursday, returning more of their recent gains as traders sought to make a profit amid widespread concerns about mixed crop weather and the economic downturn in the Northern Hemisphere.
Meanwhile, the future of soybean and soybean meal has jumped on the news of strong international demand, with signs that the United States may surpass the latest official export forecast for this grain marketing year.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Thursday that soybean exports sold a total of 902,100 tons in the week ended May 12, near the high end of market expectations.
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“We are finally starting to see the impact of small Brazilian crops,” said Brian Basting, a commodity research analyst at Advanced Trading.
However, Basting warned that traders are closely monitoring whether such orders will actually be fulfilled and shipped – or whether buyers will cancel them if they have adequate coverage.
The most active soybean contract on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) rose 28-1 / 2 cents to :0 16.91-1 / 4 a bushel at 11:06 am CT (1606 GMT).
CBOT corn rose 3-1 / 2 cents to $ 7.85 per bushel – although suspended contracts fell on good weather forecasts for planting and early crop development.
And CBOT wheat fell 32-1 / 4 cents to $ 11.98-1 / 2 a bushel, even as the International Crop Council reduced world wheat production forecasts from 780 million to 769 million tons in the 2022/23 marketing year.
The future of CBOT wheat has been bleak since Monday when India unexpectedly banned wheat exports, adding to the pressure on world supply as drought is causing severe damage to crops.
On the second day of the annual three-day tour of drought-stricken Kansas, crop scouts estimated the average yield of hard red winter wheat in the southwestern part of the state at 37.0 bushels per acre, down from 56.7 bushels in 2021. (Additional reporting by Sibili de la Hamaide in Paris and Gus Trumpiz, Halle Gu and Dominic Patton in Beijing; Edited by Shinjini Ganguly and Chris Rees)