Chicago | Reuters—Chicago Board of Trade wheat futures fell on Wednesday despite weather risks in top exporter Russia, highlighting the size of its supply as the country continues to dominate global export markets.
Corn and soybeans followed wheat lower, even as severe flooding continued to impact Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul region. ANEC, a global association of grain exporters, said on Wednesday that exporters may have to redirect exports to avoid the Rio Grande port.
The Chicago Board of Trade’s most-active wheat WN24 settled down 8-3/4 cents at $6.34 a bushel.
Read Also
Alberta crop conditions improve: report
Varied precipitation and warm temperatures were generally beneficial for crop development across Alberta during the week ended July 8, according to the latest provincial crop report released July 11.
Corn CN24 ended 8-1/2 cents lower at $4.58-1/2 a bushel. Soybeans SN24 were down 18-3/4 cents at $12.27-1/2 a bushel.
Recent weather news in Russia and the U.S. has been giving traders some mixed market signals, analysts said. Reports of frost in two of Russia’s key grain-growing areas have prompted local officials to warn that the cold weather has caused widespread damage to this year’s harvest.
But some traders shrugged off the potentially bullish news on Wednesday, and instead focused on U.S. wheat condition ratings improving this week after rain fell in wheat-producing Kansas and Oklahoma, the USDA report showed.
Meanwhile, some market participants are anticipating the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s May supply and demand and crop production reports on Friday to cast a bearish tone over the recent wheat futures rally.
“As far as today is concerned, we’re kind of reminded that we’ve got a pretty big wheat crop coming, and winter wheat conditions are substantially better than they were this time last year,” said Ted Seifried, vice president at the Zaner Group.
Grain and oilseed investors also are expecting USDA to report an increase in U.S. end-stocks of corn, wheat and soy in 2024-25, compared with the previous year, said Angie Setzer of Consus Ag Consulting.
“If there’s a bearish number on Friday, it’ll kill any type of rally,” she said.
—Additional reporting for Reuters by Michael Hogan in Hamburg and Bernadette Christina in Jakarta
