Reuters – Chicago wheat rallied on Friday amid market talk of Russia possibly halting wheat exports, while corn futures continued to climb and closed higher for the second week in a row on hearty Chinese demand.
Russian business newspaper Vedomosti reported that Moscow could recommend a temporary halt in wheat and sunflower exports. Later, though, sources told Reuters that Russia has no plans to halt wheat exports – but wants exporters to ensure prices paid to farmers are high enough to cover average production costs.
CBOT May soft red winter wheat WK3 settled up 26-1/2 cents at $6.88-1/2 per bushel, with the most-active contract Wv1 rebounding from $6.54 earlier in the week, its lowest since July 2021.
Read Also
Alberta crop conditions improve: report
Varied precipitation and warm temperatures were generally beneficial for crop development across Alberta during the week ended July 8, according to the latest provincial crop report released July 11.
“Wheat has been beat up so badly that any reaction is going to go significantly higher,” said Jack Scoville, market analyst at The Price Futures Group.
CBOT May corn CK3 settled up 11-1/4 cents at $6.43 per bushel, with the most-active contract Cv1 closing higher for the second week in a row.
Soybeans SK3 settled up 8-3/4 cents at $14.28-1/4 per bushel, rebounding after the most-active contract Sv1 fell to $14.05 during the week, the lowest since Nov. 4.
Corn hit its highest price since February after a flurry of U.S. exports to China. Private exporters reported another sale of 204,000 tonnes of corn to China, the U.S. Agriculture Department said Friday, bringing the total to more than 2.75 million tonnes since March 14.
Continued Chinese demand for U.S. corn was fuelled by the end of Brazil’s season as it prepares to export soybeans instead, Scoville added.
“That means we’re going to do the farm business for a lot of the world, and we’re seeing that manifested in the current price action here over the last couple of weeks,” Scoville said.
– Additional reporting by Gus Trompiz in Paris and Naveen Thukral in Singapore.
