US soyabean futures pulled back on Thursday on concerns about reduced export demand due to Washington's trade fight with China, after rising for the three previous sessions. Corn and wheat futures advanced on concerns about poor weather reducing global harvests, traders said.
The trade battle knocked down soya because the crop is the most valuable US agricultural export to China, the world's top buyer of the oilseed. Last year, US soyabean exports to China topped more than $12 billion. However, Chinese buyers have been loading up on soyabeans from Brazil instead of the United States because of the row.
"The big cloud of the trade war hanging over the market has made anyone really reluctant to step in," said Arlan Suderman, chief commodities economist for brokerage INTL FCStone. The most-active soyabean futures on the Chicago Board of Trade were down 1 cent at $8.56-3/4 a bushel as of 11:15 a.m. CDT (1615 GMT). The contract on Wednesday touched its highest price since July 11, partly on hopes that the United States and China could resolve the trade conflict in the coming months.
China's foreign ministry said on Thursday that it is clear who is right and who is wrong in the escalating trade row between the two countries. A day earlier, US President Donald Trump's top economic adviser had said Chinese President Xi Jinping was "holding up" a deal to resolve the dispute.
The US Agriculture Department said soyabean export sales totalled 865,700 tonnes in the latest reporting week, in line with analysts' expectations for 300,000 to 1 million tonnes. Weekly US wheat export sales of 300,000 tonnes were also in line with expectations, while US corn export sales of 1.416 million tonnes topped analysts' estimates. Most-active CBOT corn futures were up 3-3/4 cents at $3.64-3/4 a bushel, and CBOT wheat was up 9-1/4 cents at $5.03-3/4 a bushel.
Comments
Comments are closed.