Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) wheat futures fell nearly one percent on Friday on profit-taking, a day after the contract rose more than 1 percent on supply worries fuelled by concerns about production losses due to freezing weather in the US Plains hard red winter wheat region.
"There is some profit-taking after yesterday's pop, a lot of people just wanted to put some money in the bank before the weekend," said Sterling Smith, market specialist for Citigroup. Corn and soyabeans also sagged on profit-taking but soyabeans found underpinning from soaring cash markets, tight soya stocks and slow farmer selling. At 9:41 am CDT (1441 GMT), CBOT May wheat was down 6 cents per bushel at $6.95-1/4 per bushel, May corn was down 3-1/4 at $6.42 and soyabeans for May delivery were down 2-1/2 at $14.21.
"There's hardly any fresh trigger other than market participants' squaring off their positions after last night's buoyancy," said Jonathan Barratt, chief executive of BarrattBulletin, a Sydney-based commodities research firm. Wheat was setting back after soaring on Thursday on hesitant selling interesting following a series of late April freezes in the US that likely harmed portions of the chief breadgrain hard red winter wheat grown in the US Plains States.
Next week's annual Wheat Quality Council tour of wheat fields will shed more light on weather conditions and their impact on wheat output. Outlooks for improved US corn planting weather added some pressure to the corn futures market. Wet weather has kept corn seedings at a slow pace, threatening to trim 2013 corn production.
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