US corn and soyabean futures ended flat on Thursday, paring earlier gains as the harvest advanced under nearly perfect weather in the US Corn Belt. Wheat futures also opened higher before falling 1 percent on pressure from ample global supplies and forecasts for rains in the parched southern Plains this weekend.
There was also a reluctance to plow more money into the grain markets amid the lack of a cohesive plan to resolve Europe's debt crisis centred in Greece, although the European Central Bank renewed offers to aid ailing regional banks. "The downside is pretty limited but we had a 30-cent pop in two days (in corn prices) and, people who needed to get out, got out," said Jack Scoville, analyst at The Price Group.
Corn and soyabean futures gained as much as 1 percent in early trading at the Chicago Board of Trade, rising in tandem with gains in other commodities markets like gold, oil and copper. Trading in the grains markets may be choppy until the release on Wednesday of US Agriculture Department's monthly supply and demand report, when the government will update its crop production forecast.
"We're just going to continue to trade the macros here until we can see a clear picture from the USDA," said Alex Bos, a grains strategist at Macquarie Bank in New York. Strong export sales of corn and soyabeans provided early support after prices for each crop fell sharply last week, spurring demand from traditional buyers of the commodities. Chicago Board of Trade corn for December delivery ended flat at $6.05-1/2 per bushel, still about 6 percent higher than the 9-1/2 month low set on Monday.
CBOT November soyabeans settled flat at $11.63-3/4 per bushel after setting a one-year low earlier this week. CBOT December wheat was 9-1/4 cents lower at $6.16. The US Agriculture Department early Thursday said corn exports last week were 1.3 million tonnes, the most since July and above analyst and trader estimates. Ninety percent of those sales came from the top three importers of US corn: Japan, Mexico and South Korea. Export sales of US soyabeans totalled 741,700 tonnes, at the high end of estimates, the second most sales since early February but below the sales of the previous reporting period, USDA data showed.
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