US wheat futures fell 1.5 percent early on Wednesday after the US Department of Agriculture raised its forecast for global 2013/14 wheat ending stocks above trade expectations, traders said. Corn followed wheat lower but soyabeans were higher, with front-month May setting a life-of-contract high above $15 a bushel after the USDA's monthly report.
At the Chicago Board of Trade as of 12:35 pm CDT (1735 GMT), May wheat was down 12 cents at $6.69 a bushel and May corn was down 3 cents at $5.04 a bushel. May soyabeans were up 13 cents at $14.95-1/2 after reaching $15.12, a contract top and the highest spot price since July 2013. Wheat made the biggest percentage move, tumbling after the USDA raised its forecast for 2013/14 world wheat ending stocks to 186.68 million tonnes, above a range of trade estimates. The figure was up from USDA's March forecast of 183.81 million tonnes.
USDA's report "is positive for corn and beans and negative on wheat from a world perspective," Roose added. Front-month CBOT wheat was primed for a profit-taking setback after rising more than 16 percent during March, and rising more than 20 percent since hitting a 3-1/2 year low in late January at $5.50 a bushel. Much of the buying was driven by commodity funds, which shifted to a net long position in CBOT wheat in the week ended April 1, according to weekly data from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
USDA pared its US 2013/14 corn ending stocks forecast to 1.331 billion bushels, below an average of trade estimates for 1.403 billion. But the government made only a modest cut to its world ending stocks forecast, which at 158 million tonnes surpassed the average trade estimate of 157.7 million. Soyabeans jumped after the report, in which USDA cut its forecast for the 2013/14 soyabean carryout to 135 million bushels, down 10 million from last month. The figure was below an average of trade estimates for 139 million. The soya stocks figure might have been even smaller but USDA raised its forecast of US soyabean imports to a record-high 65 million bushels, a figure some analysts questioned.
Comments
Comments are closed.