Chicago | Reuters — U.S. corn, wheat and soybean futures fell on Friday on end-of-week profit-taking and technical selling, traders said.
It was the first time all three commodities posted losses on the same day since May 26. Some position-squaring ahead of the U.S. Agriculture Department’s monthly supply and demand report on Wednesday was noted.
“We are going nowhere fast right now,” Steve Erdman, analyst at EFG Group, said. “There is really nothing to propel us higher.”
Wheat posted the biggest loss, with the front-month Chicago Board of Trade July soft red winter wheat contract shedding 1.2 per cent after hitting its highest level since June 7.
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Losses were kept in check by potential damage to crops from heavy rain in the southern U.S. Plains, dry conditions in Western Europe and parts of Russia, and a combination of dryness and frost in Canada that have made investors nervous despite ample global supplies.
Traders are waiting for more information on the fate of U.S. hard red winter wheat as the harvest gets under way in the southern Plains. There are worries torrential rains and flooding last month may hit crop yields in major producing states Oklahoma and Texas.
CBOT July soft red winter wheat settled down 6-3/4 cents at $5.17 a bushel (all figures US$). For the week, wheat rose 8.4 per cent.
CBOT July soybeans ended 8-3/4 cents lower at $9.37-3/4 a bushel and CBOT July corn dropped three cents, to $3.60-1/2 a bushel.
On the week, CBOT soybeans were up 0.5 per cent while corn rose 2.6 per cent.
— Mark Weinraub is a Reuters correspondent covering grain markets from Chicago. Additional reporting for Reuters by Michael Hirtzer in Chicago, Manolo Serapio Jr. in Singapore and Gus Trompiz in Paris.
