Chicago Board of Trade wheat rose for a fourth consecutive session on Thursday, reaching a 2-1/2-month high on technical buying and concern that a cold spell in the United States could harm the winter crop. Corn also hit a multimonth high and soyabeans edged up, recouping some of the previous session's losses on strong demand. At the CBOT as of 12:25 pm CST (1825 GMT), December wheat was up 12-1/4 cents at $5.55 a bushel after reaching $5.59, the highest spot price since August 29.
Temperatures fell to minus 10 to minus 12 degrees Fahrenheit early Thursday in western Nebraska and north-east Colorado, cold enough to kill plants in a few scattered areas. The cold was not as severe in the Midwest but nonetheless posed a bigger problem because seedings and emergence of the soft red winter wheat crop lag the normal pace.
Traders were also monitoring tensions between Russia and Ukraine, both major grain exporters, and concerns that drought would reduce wheat yields in Australia. December corn was up 7-1/2 cents at $3.85-1/4 a bushel, bolstered by chart-based buying and sluggish producer selling, despite a record-large harvest. Soyabeans edged higher but trade remained volatile, with the most-active soyabean and soyameal contracts trading lower at times. January soyabeans were up 5-1/2 cent at $10.53-1/4 a bushel, with December soyameal up 80 cents at $3.95-80 a ton.
Soyameal has driven soyabean complex prices higher in recent days as heavy export commitments and the slow pace of sales by US farmers left processors scrambling for supplies. Four shipments of Argentine soyameal are headed to the United States, according to a Buenos Aires-based grains industry source who asked not to be named.
Comments
Comments are closed.