US soyabeans fell on Tuesday, pressured by a record harvest, as traders shrugged off a US Agriculture Department report that showed domestic supplies shrank to less than a 10-day supply at the beginning of the month. Soyabean futures were headed for a 34 percent quarterly decline - the biggest since 2008 - as the advancing harvest was expected to replenish supplies depleted by huge exports to top buyer China.
Corn and wheat were also lower at the Chicago Board of Trade but trimmed declines seen before the release of USDA's quarterly grain stocks report at midday. USDA said Soyabean stocks as of September 1 were a razor-thin 92 million bushels, versus the trade guess of 126 million. Indicated usage during June-August was 313 million bushels, up 6 percent on the year.
Grain prices have tumbled as the dollar rallied to multiyear peaks against a basket of other currencies, making US supplies less competitive in global markets just as farmers here were gathering a record corn and soya harvests. Quarterly corn stocks have a history of shocking markets but Tuesday's figure, just 0.4 percent above expectations at 1.236 billion bushels, was not a major surprise.
In a companion report, USDA said this year's wheat crop totalled 2.035 billion bushels, up 5 million bushels from its previous estimate and just below the analysts' average guess. The winter wheat crop was below expectations and the spring wheat crop somewhat larger than expected.
Most-active CBOT November soyabeans were down 4-1/2 cents at $9.19 per bushel as of 12:33 pm CDT (1733 GMT) after earlier falling as low as $9.09-3/4 - just above their 4-1/2 year low reached on Monday. CBOT December corn futures were down 3-1/2 cents at $3.22-1/4 per bushel after earlier notching a fresh five-year low on Tuesday of $3.19-1/2 per bushel on track for a 24 percent quarterly decline. CBOT December wheat was down 6-1/2 cents at $4.74-3/4, hovering above its contract low set last week and headed for a 16 percent drop during the quarter.
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