Corn and soyabean spot basis bids eased at river terminals around the US Midwest on Friday as traffic on the waterways was halted due to high waters, while bids were steady to firm at interior points amid slow farmer sales of both crops, grain merchants said.
US Coast Guard closed a 5-mile stretch of the lower Mississippi River for 8 days due to rising water on Friday, which helped to push up shipping costs and pressure basis bids for corn and soyabeans. Midwest river terminals also were not aggressively bidding for corn or soyabean supplies since barges will not have passage to the US Gulf Coast for more than a week, dealers said.
Corn and soyabean bids were firm at Decatur, Illinois, processor and at ethanol plant and soyabean processor in western Iowa. Farmers were busy planting corn in much of the western and central Midwest while wet conditions kept growers out of the fields in the southern and far eastern parts of the region.
Light and scattered sales seen early on Friday as corn futures gained near the open of trading before plunging 3 percent. Soyabean futures were choppy before ending mostly higher on a short-covering bounce. CBOT July corn fell more than 9 percent for the week and CBOT July soyabeans eased 4.7 percent. Grain and oilseed futures remained under pressure from sharply lower crude oil and a recovering dollar, which makes US commodities less attractive to importers.
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