GRAINS-Soybeans face biggest weekly drop since late March on supply pressure

In Commodity News 13/05/2017

Chicago soybean futures were on track on Friday for their biggest weekly decline since late March with bumper global supplies weighing on the market.

Wheat was down about 2 percent, after two weeks of gains, although declining production in the United States provided a floor to the market.

“There is pressure from South American harvest, Brazilian soybean products are flooding the market,” said Kaname Gokon from Tokyo brokerage Okato Shoji. “Prices will remain weak, the July contract may fall below $9.60 a bushel.”

The contract was trading down 0.2 percent at $9.64 a bushel by 0254 GMT.

The most-active soybean contract on the Chicago Board Of Trade is down nearly 1 percent this week, the biggest seven-day fall in six weeks.

Wheat has lost almost 2 percent, the first weekly slide in three weeks, and corn has lost about half a percent after two weeks of gains.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture pegged world soybean ending stocks for both the 2016-17 and 2017-18 marketing years above trade expectations on Wednesday.

U.S. soybean ending stocks were seen rising to an 11-year high in the 2017/18 crop year following another bumper harvest, the agency said.

Brazilian statistics agency Conab raised its estimate of the country’s 2016-17 crop to 113 million tonnes, from 110.2 million last month.

The Buenos Aires Grains Exchange raised its estimate of Argentina’s crop to 57.5 million tonnes, from 56.5 million previously.

For wheat, the USDA pegged the 2017/18 harvest at 1.820 billion bushels, down from 2.310 billion bushels a year earlier.

That would mark the smallest U.S. wheat harvest since the 2006/07 marketing year, when farmers produced 1.808 billion bushels.

CBOT corn futures were down as forecasts for warmer weather next week in the heart of the Midwest eased concerns about cold and wet conditions that have slowed planting and germination.

There was additional pressure on corn stemming from disappointing U.S. export data. The USDA reported export sales of U.S. corn in the last week at 222,600 tonnes (old and new marketing years combined), the lowest for a single week since June 2014.

Commodity funds were net sellers of CBOT corn and soybean futures on Thursday and net buyers of wheat, traders said.

 Grains prices at  0254 GMT

 Contract    Last    Change  Pct chg  Two-day chg  MA 30   RSI
CBOT wheat  434.00  0.25    +0.06%   +0.52%       438.37  53

 CBOT soy    964.00  -2.25   -0.23%   -0.64%       961.54  48
CBOT corn   368.75  -0.50   -0.14%   -1.34%       369.93  49
 CBOT rice   10.73   $0.09   +0.85%   +4.33%       $10.13  82

 Euro/dlr    $1.087  $0.001  +0.10%   +0.06%               
WTI crude   47.86   $0.03   +0.06%   +1.12%       $49.77  52
 Currencies                                                

 USD/AUD     0.7381  0.001   +0.07%   +0.24%

Most active contracts

Wheat, corn and soy US cents/bushel. Rice: USD per hundredweight

RSI 14, exponential

Source: Reuters (Reporting by Naveen Thukral; Editing by Amrutha Gayathri)