Chicago Board of Trade soyabean futures hit a four-month high on Tuesday on strength in Chinese soya markets and technical buying, analysts said. Corn inched higher while wheat was mixed ahead of the US Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday. As of 12:58 pm CST (1858 GMT), Chicago Board of Trade soyabeans for January delivery were up 12 cents at $10.32-1/4 per bushel after reaching $10.33-1/4, the contract's highest since July 20.
December corn was up 1-1/4 cents at $3.51 a bushel and December wheat was down 1-3/4 cents at $4.08-1/2 a bushel. CBOT soyabeans took cues from soyabean and soyameal futures on China's Dalian Commodity Exchange, where the January soyameal contract reached its highest level since July.
"The whole soya complex has been led by the Chinese buying. We got high enough that we saw some technical buying come into the market," said Don Roose, president of US Commodities. Soyabeans also drew support from uncertainty about crop weather as the South American growing season gets under way. Soyameal rose the most in the soya complex by percentage, gaining against soyaoil on inter-market spreads despite the US Department of Agriculture confirming that private exporters sold 30,000 lbs of soyaoil to China in the last day.
Corn was on track for its fourth straight higher close, drawing support from soyabeans, but plentiful stockpiles following a record-large US harvest curbed upward momentum. Wheat was mixed, with K.C. hard red winter wheat futures firming on worries about dry weather. In a crop report released after the market close on Monday, the USDA rated 58 percent of the US winter wheat crop as good to excellent, down from 59 percent the previous week.