US soyabeans fell 1 percent on Tuesday, pressured by a record harvest, as traders shrugged off a US Agriculture Department report that showed domestic supplies shrank to less than a 10-day supply at the beginning of the month. Soyabean futures capped a nearly 35 percent quarterly decline - the biggest since 2008 - as the advancing harvest was expected to replenish supplies depleted by huge exports to top buyer China.
Corn and wheat also eased, solidifying big quarterly losses at the Chicago Board of Trade following the release of USDA's quarterly grain stocks report at midday. USDA said soyabean stocks as of September 1 were a razor-thin 92 million bushels, versus the trade guess of 126 million. Indicated usage during June-August was 313 million bushels, up 6 percent on the year.
"We skated by on the beans - 90 million bushels isn't a whole heck of a lot," said analyst Jack Scoville of the Price Futures Group in Chicago. "But we managed to find enough beans to get us through the end of the (marketing) year and we're in harvest now." Grain prices have tumbled as the dollar rallied to multiyear peaks against a basket of other currencies, making US supplies less competitive in global markets just as farmers here were gathering record harvests of corn and soya.
Quarterly corn stocks have a history of shocking markets but Tuesday's figure, just 0.4 percent above expectations at 1.236 billion bushels, was not a major surprise. In a companion report, USDA said this year's wheat crop totalled 2.035 billion bushels, up 5 million bushels from its previous estimate and just below the analysts' average guess. The winter wheat crop was below expectations and the spring wheat crop somewhat larger than expected.
Most-active CBOT November soyabeans fell 10-1/4 cents to $9.13-1/4 per bushel, near their 4-1/2 year low reached on Monday. Prices for the beans shed 16 percent during September in the fifth consecutive monthly decline. CBOT December corn futures were down 5 cents at $3.20-3/4 per bushel after earlier notching a fresh five-year low on Tuesday of $3.19-1/2 per bushel. Corn prices lost nearly 25 percent for the quarter and 11 percent for the month. CBOT December wheat was down 3-1/4 cents at $4.78, hovering above its contract low set last week and falling 15 percent drop during the quarter. The monthly decline of 13 percent was the largest in three years.