Soya and corn slip

US new-crop soyabean futures fell more than 2 percent on Monday as improving weather in the Midwest crop belt brightened crop prospects and helped trigger a round of fund long liquidation. Wheat extended losses to 6 percent over two sessions and fell to a near three-week low as fears of shortfalls in key global growing areas eased.
Corn futures fell 2 percent on pressure from the approaching US harvest and profit-taking from last week's record-high prices, although worries about supplies following this summer's historic drought underpinned the market. Soyabean futures at the Chicago Board of Trade tumbled on cooler temperatures and light rains in the Midwest that could boost prospects for late-planted soyabeans. "How much improvement we will get, we don't know, but probably in the deep southern areas and the northern areas the crop can benefit from the recent rainfall," said Anne Frick with Jefferies Bache in New York.
After the close, the US Department of Agriculture said 30 percent of the US soyabean crop was rated in good to excellent condition, up 1 percentage point from the previous week and in line with a pre-report Reuters poll of analyst expectations. Ratings for corn, which have fallen for nine straight weeks due to the worst drought in 56 years, were unchanged at 23 percent good to excellent - also in line with trade expectations. At the CBOT, most-active November soyabeans settled down 43 cents, or 2.6 percent, at $16.00-3/4 per bushel. September wheat fell 28-1/2 cents, or 3.2 percent, to $8.56-3/4 a bushel. Benchmark December corn ended down 17 cents, or 2.1 percent, at $7.92-1/4 per bushel.
Commodity funds were net sellers of 16,000 contracts of corn, 12,000 of soyabeans and 7,000 of wheat, trade sources estimated. Soyabeans set back in spite of a big cut in the US Department of Agriculture's US 2012/13 soyabean production and stocks estimates on Friday.
The approach of the corn harvest, coupled with anecdotal reports that combines have already begun rolling in scattered areas of the Midwest, pressured corn futures. CBOT December corn has fallen nearly 7 percent from its peak of $8.49, the all-time high for any corn contract, set on Friday. USDA did not issue a figure on the progress of the corn harvest but said it expected to issue its first such figure in its next weekly report. The government said 10 percent of the corn crop was mature, ahead of the five-year average of 3 percent. The USDA last week slashed its estimate of US corn production and cut its forecast of US 2012/13 corn ending stocks to 650 million bushels, the smallest since 1995/96.