Wheat futures on the Chicago Board of Trade were down hard at midday on Tuesday as worries of a slowdown in China's economy triggered aggressive selling and sell-stops in wheat, corn and soybeans, traders said.
As of 11:45 am CST (1745 GMT), CBOT March wheat was down 10 cents, or 2 percent, at $4.73 per bushel. Most-active May was down 9 cents at $4.87 after sell-stops pushed the contract to a session low of $4.68.
New-crop July was down 9-1/4 at $4.97. Tenco Inc and Calyon Financial each sold 500 to 700 May contracts, traders said. Spot March wheat dipped below its 200- and 20-day moving averages near $4.62-$4.63 before staging a partial recovery.
Corn futures briefly plunged almost to their 20-cent daily trading limit, and funds had sold 10,000 corn contracts by mid-morning, traders said. In export news, Japan said it planned to buy 150,000 tonnes of US, Canadian and Australian wheat at its weekly tender, and South Korean flour millers are seeking 21,500 tonnes of US wheat. First notice day for deliveries on the March contract is Wednesday. Traders were expecting wheat deliveries totalling 1,000 to 2,000 lots.