Soybeans jump to 6-1/2-year top on South American supply concerns

SINGAPORE: Chicago soybean futures rose for a second straight session on Monday to hit their highest in 6-1/2 years, as tightening supplies and strong Chinese demand underpinned prices.

Corn extended gains, while wheat slid for a fourth consecutive session.

"It has been dry weather in South America and prices are rising on expectations of more dryness in key oilseed and grain producers countries of Brazil and Argentina," said Phin Ziebell, an agribusiness economist at National Australia Bank.

The most-active soybean contract on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) was up 0.6% at $13.83 a bushel, as of 0237 GMT. Earlier in the session, the market jumped to its highest since June 2014 at $13.89 a bushel.

Corn added 0.5% to $4.98-3/4 a bushel, while wheat lost 0.3% to $6.37 a bushel.

Soybeans rose on expectations that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) in its monthly supply/demand reports due on Jan. 12 will tighten its forecasts of US soy and corn ending stocks - the amount left at the end of the 2020/21 marketing year on Aug. 31, 2021, and carried over into the next marketing year.

Some analysts expect the USDA to trim its estimates of the 2020 US corn and soybean harvests as well.

Soybeans are drawing further support from news that the USDA confirmed private sales of 204,000 tonnes of US soybeans to China.

It was the first sale to China announced through the agency's daily reporting system since Nov. 6.

Traders continue to monitor South American crop weather, watching to see if significant rainfall reaches dry parts of Argentina and southern Brazil in the coming days, averting further loss of corn and soybean yield potential.

Argentina's new corn crop urgently needs rain to avoid yield drops in the main agricultural region of the South American country, where 65% of planted area is suffering from a severe drought, the Rosario grains exchange said in a report on Friday.

Large speculators raised their net long position in CBOT corn futures in the week to Jan. 5, regulatory data released on Friday showed.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission's weekly commitments of traders report also showed that non-commercial traders, a category that includes hedge funds, trimmed their net short position in CBOT wheat and cut their net long position in soybeans.