CHICAGO: Chicago Board of Trade soybean futures surged on Thursday as a combination of rising export hopes, concerns about the South American crop and technical buying pushed prices to a seven-month high, traders said.

Corn futures also were firm, with dry conditions in Argentina and Brazil in focus, but wheat futures eased after rallying sharply in the two previous sessions.

The most-active soybean contract was up 2.3% after gaining 2.2% on Wednesday.

“There are some rumors flying around that China is buying some cargoes of U.S. beans,” said Darin Fessler, senior hedge advisor at Lakefront Futures & Options. “You also took out some resistance levels from last week.”

Strength in the cash market added support.

“The combination of good crush demand with strong demand for U.S. soybeans at the Gulf (of Mexico) has the two demand components competing for cash soybeans,” Tomm Pfitzenmaier, analyst for Summit Commodity Brokerage in Iowa, said in a note.

At 10:43 a.m. CST (1643 GMT), the CBOT March soybean futures contract was up 30-1/4 cents at $14.21-1/2. On a continuous basis, the most-active contract hit its highest price since June 17.

Analysts were expecting a U.S. Agriculture Department report on Friday to show that weekly export sales of soybeans were in a range of 700,000 to 1.5 million tonnes. That compares with 918,598 tonnes a week ago.