Chicago | Reuters—Chicago Board of Trade soybean futures fell more than one per cent on Friday to below $12 a bushel on profit taking a day after the benchmark contract neared a two-month high as farmer soy sales and the dollar’s surge added to bearish sentiment, analysts said.
Wheat futures rose, while corn ticked lower in choppy trade.
CBOT May soybeans SK24 settled the day down 19-1/2 cents at $11.92-1/2 per bushel. CBOT’s May corn contract CK24 settled down 1-1/2 cents at $4.39-1/4 a bushel, while May soft red winter wheat WK24 rose 8 cents to $5.54-3/4 per bushel
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Soybeans retreated after a two-session climb. Rallies this week spurred soy sales by U.S. and South American farmers, analysts said.
“The grain and oilseed sector is mostly lower on a stronger dollar and increased farmer selling, especially in Brazil,” StoneX chief commodities economist Arlan Suderman wrote in a client note.
Others attributed market pressure to forecasts for beneficial rains in portions of the Midwest crop belt ahead of spring planting.
Rains and snow were forecast over the weekend in Iowa, a top producer of corn and soybeans, where nearly 20 per cent of the state is in extreme drought, the latest weekly U.S. Drought Monitor report showed.
“The drought in Iowa has been building up all winter, and we’re finally getting the bullseye in terms of the rain,” Randy Place, analyst with Hightower Report, said.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed private sales of 263,000 metric tons of U.S. corn to Mexico.
CBOT wheat firmed on short-covering as European wheat futures rose on renewed concerns about disruption to Black Sea supplies given rising tensions between Russia and Ukraine, traders said.
However, traders stressed that Russian and Belarusian shipments to the bloc are low relative to those from Ukraine, and that the imposition of tariffs was largely symbolic.
—Additional reporting for Reuters by Sybille de La Hamaide.
