CHICAGO: Chicago wheat futures slid on Friday, continuing a pullback from a 3-1/2-year high earlier in the week, with traders watching to see if diplomatic efforts to end Russia’s war with Ukraine would ease disruption to crucial Black Sea grain shipments.
Corn and soybeans chopped up and down in positioning ahead of the long weekend and next week’s US Department of Agriculture report. The most-active wheat contract on the Chicago Board of Trade was down 12-1/2 cents to USD7.42 a bushel as of 10:10 a.m. CT (1510 GMT). On Thursday, the benchmark slid following comments by Russian President Vladimir Putin that a peace agreement to end the war in Ukraine remained possible. Putin’s remarks triggered profit-taking after Wednesday’s peak of USD7.95.
“Any talk of peace talks is going to pressure the market,” said Ed Duggan, a broker with Top Third Ag Marketing. “Wheat is (in the Black Sea region), but it just can’t leave — that’s the problem.”
REPORTS OF US ENVOYS VISITING RUSSIA, UKRAINE
The Kremlin said on Friday that the possibility of a Ukraine peace settlement remained, but declined to confirm reports that US envoys were expected to visit Russia and Ukraine over the weekend for peace negotiations. Russian state news agency TASS and US news outlet Axios separately reported that Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner would visit Moscow and Kyiv in the next two days. However, plans for the US envoys to visit Russia and Ukraine this weekend have yet to be finalised because of US security concerns, a source familiar with the situation said.
Tit-for-tat attacks by Russia and Ukraine on each other’s ports and shipping have brought the countries’ Black Sea exports to a near halt. The squeeze led Asian wheat importers to buy at least half a million metric tons of Australian and Argentine wheat in recent deals, trade sources said this week.
CBOT soybeans edged 1-1/4 cents lower to USD13.15 a bushel while CBOT corn fell 1 cent to USD5.40 a bushel. Soybeans have been supported by Chinese purchases of US soybeans and concerns over hot, dry weather in key US growing areas. Expectations for poor yields in the US Corn Belt have kept a floor on corn futures.
The USDA said on Thursday exporters sold 192,000 tons of soybeans to China for delivery in the 2026/27 marketing year.