US soyabean futures on Tuesday extended a setback from the nearly eight-month highs reached a day earlier, as wet weather fuelled projections that farmers will plant more fields with the oilseed than previously expected. Rainy, cool conditions in the southern and Midwestern United States could prompt growers to switch 1 million to 2 million acres of land to soyabeans that they had initially intended to plant with corn, said Don Roose, president of Iowa-based brokerage US Commodities.
Recent gains in soyabean prices helped to encourage ideas among traders that plantings will be larger than the US Department of Agriculture estimated in a crop report last week. Most-active May soyabeans were down 0.4 percent at $9.10 a bushel at the Chicago Board of Trade by 1650 GMT. On Monday, they touched their highest price since August before falling back.
Corn edged up 0.5 percent to $3.56-1/4 a bushel. Corn was strengthening as traders questioned the USDA's estimate, issued on Thursday, for farmers to increase seedings by 6.4 percent to 93.601 million acres, the third-highest area since 1944. The agency said farmers planned to sow 82.236 million acres of soyabeans, the third-highest area ever but below 82.65 million a year ago and under an average trade forecast of 83.057 million.
Wheat traders were waiting for the USDA to release its first weekly national crop progress report of the year at 2000 GMT. They expect it to show relatively strong winter wheat condition ratings. In Ukraine, a major exporter, analyst Ukragroconsult raised its harvest forecast to 18.5 million tonnes from 17.7 million tonnes. The CBOT most-active wheat contract was flat at $4.74-3/4 a bushel.
Comments
Comments are closed.