US corn and wheat prices each rose about 1 percent on Tuesday as strength in crude oil helped the broader commodities sector rebound from sharp declines a day earlier, analysts said. Soyabean futures were modestly higher, supported by bullish monthly US crushing data.
As of 12:56 pm CST (1856 GMT), Chicago Board of Trade December corn was up 4 cents at $3.41-1/4 per bushel. December wheat rose 3-3/4 cents to $3.97-3/4 a bushel and January soyabeans were up 1-3/4 cents at $9.86 a bushel. Grains drew support from crude oil, with US crude futures rising as much as 5 percent on renewed expectations that the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries would agree later this month to cut production to reduce a supply glut.
"Some people are staring at crude, which is up $2 (per barrel), helping corn," said Terry Reilly, an analyst with Futures International. The 19-market Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity CRB Index was up about 1 percent, a day after falling to its lowest level since early September.
Wheat found support from dry weather in the Mississippi River Delta and portions of the southern Plains that could stress the 2017 winter wheat crop. The crop was 94 percent planted as of Sunday, the US Department of Agriculture said. "Adverse weather impacting the soft red winter wheat crop in the Delta and dry weather in southern Great Plains, just before dormancy, is propping that market higher," Reilly said.
Soyabeans were modestly higher after a monthly report from the National Oilseed Processors Association showed its members crushed 164.6 million bushels of soyabeans in October, the third-heaviest total on record. Export demand has also been supportive, with the US Department of Agriculture confirming sales of more than 700,000 tonnes of US soyabeans so far this week.
However, Reilly said the torrid pace of soyabean sales should stall in early 2017 as the South American harvest gets rolling. "We expect the US shipments to start falling off in February, and then really drop off a cliff in March," Reilly said.