Chicago | Reuters—U.S. corn futures fell 1.6 per cent on Monday, retreating from multi-month highs set last week, pressured by profit-taking and improving weather forecasts for South America, analysts said.
Wheat and soybean futures followed corn lower amid a lack of supportive news.
The Chicago Board of Trade benchmark May corn futures contract CK25 settled down 8 cents at $4.97 a bushel, sagging after reaching $5.18-3/4 last week, its highest in more than a year. CBOT May soybeans SK25 ended down 9-3/4 cents at $10.47-1/2 a bushel and May wheat WK25 fell 10-1/2 cents to settle at $5.33-1/2 a bushel.
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Corn’s declines set the tone. Commodity funds hold a massive net long position in CBOT corn futures, leaving the market prone to bouts of long liquidation. On Friday, corn futures fell and open interest declined, CBOT data showed, a sign of traders exiting long positions.
“That trend continued today, with more selling on tap as prospects for South America’s corn crop improve and expectations for U.S. planted acreage in the coming growing season to increase,” StoneX chief commodity economist Arlan Suderman wrote in a client note.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is scheduled to issue crop estimates at its annual Agricultural Outlook Forum on February 27. Farming lender CoBank forecast last week that U.S. farmers will plant 94.55 million acres of corn in 2025, up about four per cent from 2024.
“Markets are starting to expect the USDA this week will increase its estimate of U.S. corn plantings, which is weakening prices after last week’s highs,” said Matt Ammermann, commodity risk manager at StoneX.
Soybeans shrugged off news that consultancy AgRural trimmed its forecast for Brazil’s soybean crop to 168.2 million metric tons, from 171 million it had estimated in January. The estimate, if realized, would still represent Brazil’s largest-ever soybean harvest.
Wheat futures declined on the absence of Northern Hemisphere weather threats and a sluggish global export pace.
Late winter frosts in Russia’s southern breadbasket regions are unlikely to inflict significant damage on winter crops, the state weather forecasting agency said in a forecast for the end of February.
—Additional reporting by Michael Hogan in Hamburg and Peter Hobson in Canberra
