US soyabean futures fell 1.7 percent on Friday, weighed down by concerns about weakness in Chinese markets limiting export demand from the world's top buyer of the oilseed, traders said. Chicago Board of Trade corn and wheat futures also were lower. Weakness in corn stemmed from growing inventories amid a record US harvest while weak export demand for US wheat weighed on that grain.
All three commodities were on track to post weekly losses, with the bearish tone from the US Agriculture Department's monthly supply and demand and production reports hanging over the market. At 10:53 a.m. CST (1653 GMT), CBOT January soyabean futures were down 16-1/2 cents at $9.81-1/2 a bushel after rallying during the overnight trading session.
Additionally, the pace of US soyabean shipments also was lagging behind previous years, despite a USDA forecast for record exports, Gerlach said. Some traders said that a Chinese investment fund was forced to liquidate its holdings, which helped spark the initial sell-off.
CBOT December corn was 3-1/2 cents lower at $3.40 a bushel while CBOT December wheat was down 1-1/2 cents at $4.03-1/4 a bushel. For the week, soyabeans were down 0.9 percent, corn was down 2.4 percent and wheat was down 2.6 percent. Those would mark the biggest weekly declines for both corn and wheat since late August. Egypt's state grain buyer GASC said it had bought 60,000 tonnes of Russian wheat. Traders said GASC had purchased the wheat from Aston at $192.50 a tonne free-on-board (FOB) and $9.64 a tonne freight equating to $202.14 a tonne cost and freight. There was no US wheat offered in the Egyptian tender.