PARIS/JAKARTA: Chicago soybeans fell for a second straight session on Tuesday to approach a six-week low as harvest activity picked up across the US Midwest following a spell of dry weather, while traders awaited a weekly crop progress report after the close.
Corn steadied to hold above a seven-week low. Wheat ticked down, with the market shrugging off a latest attack on vessels in the Black Sea export zone.
The most-active soybean contract on the Chicago Board of Trade was down 0.3 percent to USD12.83-1/2 a bushel by 1213 GMT.
It was near a six-week low of USD12.69-3/4 struck on Friday after the US Department of Agriculture increased its estimate of the US soybean harvest to a new record.
“It is also the arrival of this massive harvest that weighed on soybean prices … with favourable weather for the harvest at the beginning of the week,” Argus analysts said in a note.
Market attention has turned to the USDA’s weekly crop progress report, due after Tuesday’s market close. The report will show the extent to which work gathered speed in drier weather last week before showers are due to return this week.
CBOT corn added 0.3 percent to USD4.84-1/4 a bushel, after earlier slipping towards Friday’s seven-week low of USD4.70-1/4.
Basis bids for corn and soybeans shipped by barge to the US Gulf Coast declined on Monday as the Midwest harvest expanded following days of favourable dry weather, steering fresh grain supplies into marketing channels that feed the Gulf, traders said.
Corn futures had plunged on Friday after the USDA wrong-footed the market by increasing its forecast of this year’s US corn yield.
CBOT wheat declined 0.4 percent to USD6.69-3/4 a bushel, moving back towards Friday’s seven-week low.
The market showed little reaction to news that two cargo ships were struck by drones off the coast of Bulgaria, with one sinking, the latest in a series of attacks on commercial shipping in the western Black Sea.
Market worries over disruption to massive Black Sea trade, due to Russia’s war with Ukraine, have been tempered by increased shipments of Russian wheat through alternative Baltic routes.
Wheat market is also awaiting results from an import tender being held on Tuesday by Algeria as a further indication of export prices and availability.
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