SINGAPORE: Chicago wheat slid on Monday, with the market giving up some of last session’s gains, although concerns over dry weather hitting production in key Southern Hemisphere suppliers Australia and Argentina curbed losses.
Corn and soybeans lost ground as prices of both crops remained under pressure from US harvest and South American supplies.
The most-active wheat contract on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) lost 0.4% to $5.77 a bushel, as of 0338 GMT.
Corn fell 0.5% to $4.75 a bushel and soybeans were down 0.3% at $12.93 a bushel.
Droughts in Argentina and Australia are expected to tighten world wheat supplies later in the season, while the Ukraine war remained a risk to Black Sea trade.
Australia’s wheat production is likely to decline further as hot and dry weather in September, a crucial month for crop development, curbs yields.
Argentina’s sales of the upcoming wheat crop are the slowest in seven years, delayed by farmers waiting for heavier rainfall and gambling on the result of the country’s Oct. 22 presidential election, with some candidates pledging tax cuts on grains exports.
Ukraine is trying to resume loading of a Black Sea export route despite Russia’s withdrawal from a previous grain export deal.
The first big ship carrying grain from a Ukrainian Black Sea port has set sail since Moscow quit a deal in July to allow exports, the Ukrainian deputy prime minister said on Friday, part of Kyiv’s campaign to break Russia’s de facto blockade.
However, Russia Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday that while Moscow does not reject UN efforts to revive a Black Sea grain deal, a recent proposal was unrealistic.
The deal - brokered by the UN and Turkey in July 2022 - offered a small reprieve in the food crisis by allowing the safe Black Sea export of Ukraine grain and bringing down global prices, but Russia quit the two months ago, complaining that not enough was being done to improve its own exports.
Freshly harvested US corn and soybeans were adding to ample South American supplies, though doubts lingered over US yield potential following dry weather in the Midwest this spring, while farmers in Brazil are facing dry planting conditions.
Large speculators increased their net short position in Chicago Board of Trade corn futures in the week ended Sept. 19, regulatory data released on Friday showed.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s weekly commitments of traders report also showed that noncommercial traders, a category that includes hedge funds, trimmed their net short position in CBOT wheat and cut their net long position in soybeans.
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