New York | Reuters — Chicago soybean and corn futures fell on Friday due to profit-taking after the previous day’s rally and forecasts of favourable harvest weather this weekend.
Wheat futures also dropped as concerns ebbed about shipping grain through the Black Sea.
The most-active Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) soybean futures fell 1.2 per cent to end at $12.66 a bushel (all figures US$).
Some commercial buyers were likely selling soybean futures to hedge their upcoming purchases from farmers, resulting in pressure on prices, said Jason Ward, managing director of Northstar Commodity in Minneapolis.
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“Soybeans are expecting a very big harvest weekend,” he said. “Sometimes you’ll get some selling in prior.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture will release an update on the progressing corn and soybean harvests on Tuesday at 3 p.m. CT, rather than on Monday due to the U.S. federal holiday.
This week’s report showed the soybean harvest was 23 per cent complete, two points behind an average of analysts’ forecasts.
CBOT December corn dropped 1.1 per cent to $4.92 a bushel after touching $4.99, its highest level in more than a month.
“That $5 (per bushel) level has been a very, very tough level for the market to go through,” Ward said.
Data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) released Friday showed speculators still held a massive net short position in corn futures, but had trimmed that position over the week ending Oct. 3.
CBOT December soft red winter wheat dropped 10 cents to settle at $5.68-1/4 a bushel after rallying a day earlier on reports a cargo ship hit a mine in the Black Sea, reviving concerns about the precarious status of exports from war-torn Ukraine.
Reaction to the news subsided on Friday as the vessel suffered only minor damage.
— Reporting for Reuters by Zachary Goelman in New York; additional reporting by Gus Trompiz in Paris and Peter Hobson in Canberra.
