Chicago wheat futures slid on Wednesday, giving up some of the previous session’s strong gains, although concerns about global supplies and lower Russian crop forecasts provided a floor for the market.
Soybeans rose for a second straight session and corn edged higher.
“The market is continuing to adjust to substantially lower Russian wheat crop estimates,” said Tobin Gorey, director of agricultural strategy at Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
The most-active wheat contract on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) fell 0.6% to $7.22-1/2 a bushel as of 0402 GMT. The market closed up 2.2% on Tuesday.
Soybean rose 0.3% to $13.41 a bushel and corn gained 0.1% at $5.53-3/4 a bushel.
Russia, the world’s biggest exporter, is expecting a lower crop for 2021/22.
Wheat received additional support on worries about tightening global supplies after rain affected the milling quality of the French harvest.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is set to release its updated monthly supply/demand reports on Thursday, and analysts surveyed by Reuters on average expect the agency to lower its forecasts of 2021/22 U.S. and global wheat ending stocks.
The USDA confirmed private sales of 132,000 tonnes of U.S. soybeans to China and another 130,000 tonnes to unknown destinations, the latest in a flurry of recent U.S. soy sales.
The USDA late on Monday rated 64% of the U.S. corn crop in good to excellent condition, up 2 percentage points from the previous week, while most analysts had expected no change.
Commodity funds were net buyers of CBOT wheat, soyoil and soybean futures contracts on Tuesday and net even in corn and soymeal futures, traders said.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Naveen Thukral; Editing by Amy Caren Daniel)