Soybeans were lower on commercial and fund selling. The trade was getting ready for Thursday morning’s supply, demand, and production numbers. On average, the trade expects an increased crop estimate with bigger new crop ending stocks. The report is out at 7:30 AM Central. China bought 120,000 tons of 2012/13 U.S. soybeans, Beijing second outright purchase over 100,000 tons in the past week. According to Somar Meteorologia, via Dow Jones Newswires, a cold front in Brazil should bring at least some much needed rainfall to dry soybean growing areas. Soybean meal and oil were lower, following beans, but losses in meal were limited by solid export demand and higher cash basis levels.

Corn was lower on commercial and fund selling, in addition to spillover from soybeans. Corn was also getting ready for those USDA numbers. Analysts do expect another decrease in crop size, but the range of estimates is pretty wide, so don’t rule out a surprise, and new crop ending stocks should be down modestly on the month, but that’ll depend on the production guess. Ethanol futures were lower. France’s Agrimer projects 2012/13 corn production at 15.02 million tons, compared to the 2011/12 total of 15.6 million tons.

The wheat complex was higher on technical and commercial buying. The near term fundamentals continue to turn less bearish and the long term outlook is supportive. Also, the trade’s keeping an eye on dry conditions across the U.S. Plains and the impact on the emerging winter wheat crop. Ending stocks Thursday morning are expected to be down on the month and year. European wheat was flat prior to the updated USDA numbers. France’s Agrimer expects 2012/13 soft wheat production to hit 35.98 million tons, up 5.9% on the year. In sell-buy-sell activity, Japan bought 70,960 tons of feed wheat and 32,285 tons of feed barley while issuing a new tender for 120,000 tons of feed wheat and 200,000 tons of feed barley.