US soyabean futures weakened on Friday on a round of technical selling after failing to push through their weekly high during the overnight trading session. Corn and wheat futures also were trading lower, pressured by abundant global supplies and some end-of-week profit taking. Both corn and wheat were still on track to post weekly gains.
Wheat faced additional headwinds from a benign weather outlook for crop development, adding to concerns about strong harvests in the coming months providing additional supplies for an already robust world stockpile.
"The strong cold is set to return to the Black Sea Region next week, but sufficient snow cover should protect the wheat in the area from winterkill," said Matt Gallik, mark analyst at CHS Hedging. At 10:12 a.m. CST (1612 GMT), Chicago Board of Trade soft red winter wheat for March delivery was down 1-3/4 cents at $4.32-3/4 a bushel. For the week, wheat futures have risen 3.0 percent. They had posted gains in four of the previous five weeks.
CBOT March corn was 1-3/4 cents lower at $3.65-3/4 a bushel. Corn futures have risen 0.9 percent this week. CBOT March soyabeans were down 3-3/4 cents at $10.33-1/2 a bushel. Soyabean futures have fallen 1.5 percent this week and were on track for their second straight weekly loss. The soyabean market has been weighed down by improving crop weather in Argentina and expectations for a record crop in Brazil. INTL FCStone on Thursday raised its estimate for Brazil's 2016/17 soyabean crop to 104.08 million tonnes from a previous projection of 102.76 million. A large and early Brazilian crop is expected to curb demand for US soyabeans.