Chicago | Reuters — U.S. corn futures fell on Thursday on profit-taking after this week’s multi-month highs and worries about export demand after China canceled a purchase of U.S. supplies, traders said.
Wheat sagged on poor weekly export data and a lack of fresh supportive news while soybean futures posted modest losses after a volatile, see-saw session.
Chicago Board of Trade March corn settled down 5-3/4 cents at $6.16-3/4 per bushel, and March wheat fell 3-1/4 cents to end at $7.51-3/4 a bushel (all figures US$).
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Corn futures fell to session lows after the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said private exporters canceled sales of 380,000 tonnes of U.S. corn to China.
The cancelation followed an attache report released on Wednesday by USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service that projected China’s 2021-22 corn imports at 20 million tonnes, below USDA’s official forecast of 26 million tonnes.
Traders continued to digest weekly data showing rising U.S. stocks of corn-based ethanol fuel. The U.S. Energy Information Administration on Wednesday reported U.S. ethanol stocks in the latest week at 25.854 million barrels, the most since April 2020.
Commodity funds hold a heft net long position in CBOT corn futures, leaving the market vulnerable to bouts of long liquidation.
CBOT soybeans ended down after a roller-coaster session as pressure from profit-taking offset support from strong weekly U.S. export sales and shrinking estimates of South Americans’ crops.
March soybeans settled down one cent at $15.44-1/4 per bushel after swinging between $15.29 and $15.60. Technical selling was noted as the contract failed to match Wednesday’s life-of-contract high of $15.64.
But weekly U.S. soybean export sales were strong in the week ended Jan. 27 at 1,977,400 tonnes (old- and new-crop years combined), USDA reported, above a range of trade expectations.
Weekly sales of old-crop U.S. soymeal, a feed ingredient, totaled 605,500 tonnes, a marketing year high that also topped trade expectations.
Uncertainty about the size of South America’s crops underpinned the soy complex. The Buenos Aires grains exchange cut its forecast for Argentina’s soybean harvest to 42 million tonnes, from 44 million previously.
Ahead of a monthly U.S. supply/demand report due Feb. 9, analysts surveyed by Reuters on average expected USDA to lower its estimates of corn and soybean crops in both Argentina and Brazil.
— Julie Ingwersen is a Reuters commodities correspondent in Chicago; additional reporting by Gus Trompiz in Paris and Gavin Maguire in Singapore.
