Chicago wheat futures slid for a second session on Monday as the market took a breather from a rally that drove prices to a three-year high last week on concerns over dryness curbing production in key exporting nations.
Soybeans edged lower as an escalation in the trade war between Washington and Beijing stoked fears for sales of U.S. soybeans to China.
The Chicago Board of Trade most-active wheat contract was down 0.7 percent at $5.52-1/2 a bushel by 0257 GMT, having lost 0.8 percent on Friday. The market climbed to its highest since July 2015 at $5.93 a bushel on Thursday.
Soybeans gave up 0.3 percent to $9.00 a bushel and corn also fell 0.3 percent to $3.83-1/4 a bushel.
The wheat market is being supported as searing heat devastates crops across northern Europe, while dry conditions
and extreme rain in the Black Sea region have hit output estimates.
Australian wheat production is also likely to miss official estimates amid dry weather across the country’s east coast.
“We have dry weather in several parts of the world which will limit wheat yields,” said one India-based agricultural
commodities analyst.
“But the market has been under pressure after climbing last week as Ukraine had denied it is trying to limit exports.”
Ukraine’s acting Agriculture Minister Maksym Martyniuk on Friday sought to calm concerns about a possible shortage of wheat this year, stressing the ministry has increased the crop forecast to 24 million tonnes from a previous 22-23 million tonnes.
Soybeans are under pressure after China proposed retaliatory tariffs on $60 billion worth of U.S. goods on Friday, casting doubt on prospects of talks with Washington to solve their bitter trade conflict.
Argentina expects to export significant amounts of soymeal to China starting after the next harvest in May, a top
agriculture ministry official said on Friday, as the South American grains powerhouse moves to take advantage of U.S.-China trade strife.
Commodity funds were net buyers of CBOT corn, soybeans and soyoil futures contracts on Friday and net sellers of wheat and soymeal, traders said.
Contract Last Change Pct chg Two-day chg MA 30 RSI
CBOT wheat 552.50 -3.75 -0.67% -1.43% 511.82 66
CBOT corn 383.25 -1.00 -0.26% +0.52% 369.47 63
CBOT soy 900.00 -2.25 -0.25% +0.28% 875.61 62
CBOT rice 11.52 $0.02 +0.17% -0.99% $11.85 22
WTI crude 68.78 $0.29 +0.42% -0.26% $70.50 49
Currencies
Euro/dlr $1.156 -$0.001 -0.06% -0.19%
USD/AUD 0.7394 0.000 -0.07% +0.49%
