CHICAGO: Chicago Board of Trade corn futures eased on Friday on technical selling and disappointment in the size of weekly export sales, analysts said.
Soybeans faced pressure from profit-taking in soymeal and soyoil futures, and wheat futures turned lower on sluggish exports, said Karl Setzer, partner at Consus Ag Consulting.
“Global trade on wheat is stagnant right now, so there’s no urgency in the market to extend coverage,” Setzer said. The most-active CBOT corn contract was down 3-1/4 cents at $4.40-1/4 a bushel by 12:19 p.m. CST (1819 GMT).
The contract had reached its highest since late June at $4.51-1/4 on Wednesday after the US Department of Agriculture cut its estimate for US end-of-season corn stockpiles to 1.738 billion bushels from 1.938 billion.
But USDA weekly export data on Thursday showed net US corn sales at 946,900 metric tons, below analyst forecasts for at least 1.1 million tons. Most-active soybeans were down 9 cents to $9.86-3/4 a bushel and CBOT wheat slipped 6-3/4 cents to $5.51-3/4 a bushel. Growing uncertainty over China’s import needs going into next year also weighed on grain and oilseed markets, Setzer said.
China’s total grain production reached a record of more than 700 million tons in 2024, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Friday, as Beijing moved to boost output as part of a broader effort to be less reliant on food imports.
Uncertainty over the flow of future US exports to Canada, another key market, also pressured futures, Setzer said. Trade tensions between the countries are heating up, after Canada vowed it would retaliate against US tariffs and Ontario Premier Doug Ford said energy exports to the US could be halted.
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