SINGAPORE: Chicago soybeans slipped lower on Friday, on track for a third straight week of decline, as higher US supplies and expectations of bumper production in South America continue to hammer the market.
Wheat futures ticked up after sliding for five consecutive sessions, with losses limited by tightening global supplies.
Soybeans have lost more than 10 percent in the last three weeks of losses on improving supply prospects. Corn is down 2.3 percent this week, its second week of decline, while wheat is down 4.5 percent, its biggest weekly slide in six weeks.
"The sentiment is quite bearish for soybeans, as weather conditions in South America look favourable for crop development and US supplies seems to be ample for now," said Ker Chung Yang, analyst at Phillip Futures in Singapore.
Argentine farmers will increase soy planting by almost 4 percent as the South American grains powerhouse moves to bolster world food supplies hit by a year of bad global crop weather, the government said.
In its first soybean area estimate of the 2012/13 season, the farm ministry said 19.4 million hectares will be sown in the weeks ahead, versus 18.7 million in 2011/12.
Conditions in central and northern Brazil are "near ideal" thanks to timely rains, said Don Roose, president of brokerage US Commodities.
Expanding supply forecasts have weighed on the soy market since the US Department of Agriculture, in a crop report last week, made a surprisingly big increase in its estimate of the US soy harvest and raised its outlook for global stocks.
Chicago Board of Trade's January soybeans fell 0.1 percent to $14.00-1/2 a bushel by 0255 GMT, not far from Tuesday's four-and-half month low of $13.91-1/4 a bushel. December wheat added 0.3 percent to $8.47-3/4 a bushel while December corn gained 0.2 percent to $7.22-3/4 a bushel.
There are bearish signals for soybeans even from the technical point of view.
January soybeans are poised to break a support at $13.93 per bushel and fall towards $13.49-1/2, the 76.4 percent Fibonacci projection level of a downward wave c or wave 3, according to Reuters market analyst Wang Tao.
Wheat edged higher as the market recovered after the last five sessions of decline on hopes of higher demand for US grains as low-cost Black Sea exporters run out of stocks.
Egypt, the world's biggest importer of wheat, will strike Ukraine from its list of suppliers in 2013 after receiving notification of an export halt from Dec. 1, according to the government's main buyer.
The announcement was not a surprise following recent talk about export curbs by Ukraine, traders said.
US exporters have lost out to the Black Sea on a string of international tenders recently, with Libya buying optional-origin wheat thought to be from Russia, and Jordan booking wheat thought to be from Ukraine.
European traders said on Thursday Algeria bought at least 400,000 tonnes of optional-origin milling wheat that was probably from France.
On the technical front, wheat is expected to fall below a neutral range of $8.43-1/4 to $8.57-1/2 per bushel, and extend its loss to $8.28, driven by a downward wave 5.
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