Market News

Late soybean rally boosts corn, wheat

Soybeans closed higher Thursday, reversing earlier losses in spite of some bearish concerns. The dollar traded higher again after Wednesday’s interest rate hike.  DTN says the export sales and shipment numbers from USDA were bearish. And Argentina’s new president lifted controls on the peso, which was expected to encourage more soybean exports from Argentina.  On the bullish side, China bought 15.6 million bushels of U.S. soybeans.  Also contributing to the market turnaround is the mostly dry weather forecast for Mato Grosso.

Corn closed higher in a late-session rebound despite a sharply higher dollar and bearish export numbers from the USDA.  In its weekly report, the agency said that last week’s sales and shipments were not enough to keep pace with USDA’s export estimate. It has been difficult to convince buyers to enter this market. Corn is trading within a sideways range, thanks to slow farmer selling at these lower prices.

Wheat closed mostly higher, resulting from the rally in soybeans.  Wheat is, however, still under bearish pressure after the dollar was lifted by Wednesday’s interest rate increase.  USDA said that last week’s export sales and shipments of wheat were bearish, reinforcing the view that U.S. ending wheat stocks will probably be close to 1 billion bushels in 2015-16. U.S. supplies are plentiful and exports are sagging.