Wheat on track for 10% monthly loss, biggest since May 2022
Chicago wheat fell more than 1.5% on Thursday and was on track for a monthly fall of 10%, its biggest since May 2022, amid plentiful supplies from top exporter Russia.
Soybeans were also lower but heading towards their biggest monthly gain since February last year, supported by strong U.S. export demand and fears that dry weather was damaging the crop at a key stage of development.
“Harvest pressure in the northern hemisphere continues to weigh on global wheat markets. Russia’s strong wheat export pace in particular following last year’s record crop and now a large new crop will continue weighing on markets in the short term,” said Dennis Voznesenski, senior grains analyst at Rabobank.
“The weather in the U.S. will continue to move soybean markets in the coming month,” he added.
The most-active wheat contract Wv1 on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) fell 1.7% by 1200 GMT to $5.97 a bushel and was down more than 10% in August.
Soybeans Sv1 were down 0.4% at $13.81-1/4 a bushel but up 3.8% this month, while CBOT corn Cv1 fell 0.2% to $4.80 a bushel, putting this month’s loss so far at 6.4%, the largest monthly fall since June.
Russia’s foreign ministry said the Russian and Turkish foreign ministers would discuss a Russian proposal for an alternative to the Black Sea grain deal this week.
Meanwhile, Egypt’s state grains buyer has bought 240,000 metric tons of wheat – half of it French, half Romanian – in an international tender but that failed to support EU futures that were trading 1.7% lower at 234.50 euros ($254.78) a metric ton.
In the United States, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on Wednesday confirmed private sales of 266,000 metric tons of U.S. new-crop soybeans to unknown destinations, having reported similar-sized sales on both Monday and Tuesday.
Traders estimated U.S. soybean export sales for the week ended Aug. 24 in the range of 650,000 to 1.7 million metric tons. USDA data is expected at 0730 a.m. CDT (1230 GMT).
Export activity and hot, dry weather in the United States pushed soybean futures to a one-month high of $14.10 on Monday.
More dry weather is expected, but U.S. government data on Monday showed that soybeans had suffered less damage than feared.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Naveen Thukral, Peter Hobson and Sybille de La Hamaide; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
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