PARIS/SINGAPORE: Chicago corn rose for a fifth consecutive session on Thursday and traded near a one-year high hit a day earlier as concerns over dry weather across the US Midwest triggered short-covering.
Soybeans rose on news of a 25 percent surge in Chinese imports last month, while wheat hit its highest in more than a month on adverse US weather.
The Chicago Board of Trade most-active corn contract rose 1.0 percent to $3.88-1/2 a bushel by 1053 GMT. It hit $3.89 earlier in the session, the highest since June 29, 2016. On Wednesday it gained 2 percent.
Wheat added nearly 1.0 percent at $4.49-1/4 a bushel, the highest since May 4. It had also closed 2 percent higher on Wednesday. Soybeans gained 0.9 percent to $9.39-1/4 a bushel.
Hot and dry weather in the northern US Plains and northern Midwest is expected over the weekend, potentially damaging crops.
"Forecasts of hot and dry weather in parts of the US Midwest are prompting short-term-oriented market participants to cover their short positions," Commerzbank said in a note, adding that it was too early to be overly concerned about crop yield shortfalls.
The US corn crop is still a few weeks from its key pollination phase, which usually occurs in July.
The weather concerns come as commodity funds hold large net short positions in corn, wheat and soybeans, leaving the markets vulnerable to short-covering.
Funds were net buyers of CBOT corn, wheat and soybean futures on Wednesday.
"Certainly there are some concerns about crop conditions in the United States, especially for corn, but a steep decline in oil prices might partly offset those gains," said Phin Ziebell, an agribusiness economist at National Australia Bank.
"It might not be profitable to make ethanol."
Soybean prices were also supported by hefty imports in China, the largest buyer of the oilseed. Imports rose in May by 25 percent from a year earlier to the highest on record as a backlog of previously purchased supplies arrived in the country.
China imported 9.59 million tonnes of soybeans last month, figures from the General Administration of Customs of China showed. That is the most on record in data going back to at least 2010.
"The robust demand from China will be needed to absorb the plentiful supply flooding the market just now from South America, however," Commerzbank said.
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