US corn futures rose 1.5 percent on Thursday, rallying from a three-week low on strong US export demand and a retreat in the dollar, while soyabeans fell, halting a four-day rally. Wheat futures closed modestly higher after a choppy trade. The US dollar reversed from early gains which had pressured grain markets overnight. The euro rose against the dollar as hopes a Greek bond swap deal could be within reach boosted investor sentiment and risk tolerance.
"Everyone came into the day afraid the outside markets were unravelling, but when the dollar turned down and crude oil gained, that brought people back into the market," said Shawn McCambridge, grains analyst for Jefferies Bache. Corn also drew support from strong weekly US export sales. The US Department of Agriculture reported sales of US corn in the latest week at 1.067 million tonnes, above trade estimates for 550,000 to 750,000 tonnes. The total included 415,300 tonnes sold to Mexico for the current marketing year begun September 1 and another 61,500 for 2012/13. "Export sales for corn were above expectations. Mexico continued to be aggressive here and Egypt was making some purchases," said Brian Basting with Advance Trading in Bloomington, Illinois.
"We didn't see any technical follow-through (selling) this morning, and we didn't see much farmer selling. The pipeline is still fairly tight," Basting said. At the Chicago Board of Trade, March corn settled up 9-1/4 cents at $6.36-1/4 per bushel and March wheat ended up 2-3/4 cents at $6.28-3/4 a bushel. March soyabeans fell 2-3/4 cents to close at $12.58-1/4 a bushel.
Corn advanced as traders took profits on long soyabean/short corn spread positions. Soyabeans had gained against corn this week on concerns about dry weather stressing soyabeans in southern Brazil, and fears that US farmers would not plant enough soyabeans this spring to meet global demand.
That trend reversed on Thursday, with new-crop November soyabeans falling while December corn advanced. The price ratio for November soyabeans to December corn, one indicator of US planting intentions, had reached a nine-month high of 2.25-to-1 on Wednesday, but it fell to 2.22-to-1 on Thursday. Analysts say a soya-corn price ratio of roughly 2.5-to-1 tends to favour the planting of soyabeans over corn, while a lower ratio tends to favour corn. CBOT wheat was underpinned by news that Egypt, the world's largest wheat importer, bought 180,000 tonnes of US soft red winter wheat for April 11-20 shipment.
Comments
Comments are closed.