Chicago | Reuters—Chicago soybean and wheat futures firmed on Tuesday as signs of growing demand appeared for both crops.
In corn, traders monitored the progress of the Pro Farmer crop tour, which began traversing the Midwest on Monday and forecast high yields in the first states.
The most-active soybean contract on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) Sv1 ended flat at $9.76 a bushel, while CBOT corn Cv1 settled down 2-1/4 cents to $3.98 a bushel.
News that exporters sold 332,000 metric tons of U.S. soybeans to China on Monday, and 239,492 tons to Mexico on Tuesday as well as another 132,000 tons to China, helped underpin prices in the previous session.
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“Our demand is beginning to ramp up here,” said Randy Place, an analyst at the Hightower Report. “It’s been way behind the game for a long time, but the last two days, we’ve had some pretty big sales.”
Place said the sales were the effect of a weaker dollar.
“I think this weakening dollar is giving people the idea that maybe we’re able to export enough of the crop to keep supplies from being too high in the U.S.”
Meanwhile, scouts on the Pro Farmer tour estimated corn yield prospects in both Ohio and South Dakota were below last year’s findings, but higher than the three-year average.
In wheat, Place said U.S. soft red wheat prices were very competitive with Russia and Ukraine, with large supplies and the spring wheat crop set to also be strong.
“That’s a little different than several months back when Russia and Ukraine prices were just so much lower than us, we couldn’t sell anything,” he said.
“That’s changed with this weaker dollar.”
CBOT wheat Wv1 was up 4-1/4 cents at $5.56-1/2 a bushel.
—Additional reporting for Reuters by Gus Trompiz
