US wheat futures fell 1 percent on Thursday on wetter forecasts for parts of the drought-hit southern Plains wheat belt as well as disappointing weekly export sales data, traders said. Soyabeans sagged as Chinese defaults on purchases of US and Brazilian soyabeans triggered a fresh round of profit-taking, one day after the market set an 8-1/2-month high.
Corn fell on technical selling but pared losses amid concerns about potential US planting delays.
At the Chicago Board of Trade, May wheat settled down 6-3/4 cents at $6.62-1/4 a bushel, while KC May hard red winter wheat, the type grown in the Plains, dipped to a one-month low of $7.19-3/4. CBOT May soyabeans fell 13 cents to $14.82-1/4 a bushel and May corn ended down 1 cent at $5.01-1/4 a bushel.
Wheat fell amid forecasts calling for increased rains in the southern Plains production belt next week, including central Kansas, a core production area.
"We've got a wetter weather pattern developing. That has helped increase the fundamental pressure of yesterday's negative USDA report," said Mike Zuzolo of Global Commodity Analytics in Atchison, Kansas.
He was referring to the US Department of Agriculture's monthly supply/demand report, in which the government raised its forecast of 2013/14 world wheat inventories above a range of trade expectations.
Additional pressure came from the USDA's weekly export sales report on Thursday, which pegged sales of US wheat in the latest week at 41,800 tonnes, below trade expectations and a low for the 2013/14 marketing year.
The selloff in soyabeans followed a two-session rally that lifted front-month May to a life-of-contract high on Wednesday above $15 a bushel.
Defaults by buyers in China, which imports 60 percent of the soyabeans traded in the world, are expected to cap global prices as they coincide with bumper supplies from Brazil and Argentina hitting the market.
Chinese importers have defaulted on at least 500,000 tonnes of US and Brazilian soyabean cargoes worth around $300 million, the biggest in a decade, as they struggle to get credit amid losses in processing beans. "You've got all the rhetoric out there about Chinese cancellations rolling forward. But on the other side of the coin, beans are still tight in this country," said Tom Fritz, a partner at EFG Group in Chicago.
Acknowledging robust demand for US soya, particularly from exporters, the USDA on Wednesday lowered its forecast of US 2013/14 soyabean ending stocks to 135 million bushels, which would be a 10-year low if realized at the end of the marketing year on August 31.
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