US wheat futures firmed early on Thursday on technical buying including short-covering, but advances were modest as export sentiment remained gloomy. Soyabean futures also rose while corn was narrowly mixed, with the benchmark December contract consolidating above a contract low set this week. At the Chicago Board of Trade as of 1:07 pm CST (1907 GMT), December wheat was up 4 cents at $4.98-3/4 a bushel, after briefly trading above $5 for the first time since Tuesday.
CBOT January soyabeans were up 2-1/2 cents at $8.63-1/4 a bushel and December corn was unchanged at $3.62-1/4 a bushel. Nearby contracts led the strength in wheat. "It's largely a function of there being fund shorts in the market," said Austin Damiani of Frontier Futures in Minneapolis, adding that K.C. hard red winter and MGEX spring wheat futures fell to multi-year lows this week and were due for a rebound.
However, US wheat remained relatively expensive for export, a fact underscored by two tenders held by Egypt this week in which US wheat was not offered. "The market, for now, seems to have paused around those levels to see if much demand emerges," said Tobin Gorey, director of agricultural strategy, Commonwealth Bank of Australia. Soyabeans drew support from USDA confirming private sales of 300,000 tonnes of US soyabeans to top buyer China. December corn futures were hovering a few cents per bushel above contract lows set Tuesday after the USDA raised its estimates of US corn production and ending stocks above trade expectations.
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