Chicago Board of Trade soyabean futures firmed at times on Wednesday, but the rally evaporated by the end of the day despite the White House announcing it would take a softer approach to Chinese acquisitions of sensitive US technologies. CBOT August soyabeans futures ended the day unchanged at $8.73 a bushel.
US President Donald Trump's administration unveiled a plan on Wednesday for a stronger security review process for foreign investors acquiring American technologies, softening its tone from previous remarks indicating it would specifically block Chinese investments. China is the top buyer of US soyabeans. Soyabean futures rose on the news, but later reversed gains in afternoon trading.
"Trade is just a wet blanket on the market," said Joe Vaclavik, president of Standard Grain. "Large speculators and funds, specifically the funds, are terrified of the long side of the grain markets because of the trade issues. Now, they're short all across the board." Now, said traders, they were waiting to see what the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) would report both for grain exports, as well as US crop conditions.
USDA is scheduled to issue its weekly export sales report at 7:30 a.m. CDT (1230 GMT) on Thursday. Analysts surveyed by Reuters on average expected the USDA to report soyabean export sales at 400,000 to 1 million tonnes (old- and new-crop years combined). USDA's acreage and quarterly stocks reports are set to be released on Friday.
Analysts surveyed by Reuters on average expect the USDA to raise its estimates of US 2018 corn and soyabean plantings from its March forecasts, and to report multi-year highs in US June 1 corn and soya stockpiles.