Chicago | Reuters –– U.S. corn futures fell to their lowest level in more than six months on Tuesday and soybean and wheat futures also dropped on a round of end-of-month liquidation by investment funds, traders said.
Soybeans notched the biggest declines, with the most-active contract falling 2.2 per cent, its biggest daily decline since Dec. 1.
Traders said soybeans were the most vulnerable to a sell-off as wheat and corn have already fallen sharply since the start of 2023, while the soybean market had to catch up.
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“The liquidation has started and the beans are playing catch-up with the feed grains,” said Mike Zuzolo, president of Global Commodities Analytics.
Additionally, soybeans faced fundamental pressure as recently harvested supplies from top producer Brazil became available on the global marketplace.
CBOT May soybean futures settled down 33-3/4 cents at $14.79 a bushel (all figures US$). For the month, soybeans shed 3.8 per cent, their first monthly decline since September.
CBOT May corn futures were off 13-1/4 cents at $6.30-1/4 a bushel. Prices bottomed out at $6.30, the lowest for the most-active contract since Aug. 22, 2022. Corn futures fell 7.3 per cent during February, their biggest monthly decline since June.
CBOT May soft red winter wheat ended down 4-1/2 cents at $7.05-1/2 a bushel. Wheat futures declined and posted a monthly drop of 7.3 per cent, their fifth straight monthly decline.
Rain in parts of the U.S. winter wheat belt and optimism over a Russia-Ukraine export deal kept the wheat market under pressure.
“The weakness is probably due to the good supply situation, thanks in part to a sharp rise in Russian exports,” Commerzbank said about the market move over the past two weeks.
Turkey’s state grain board, TMO, has provisionally purchased an estimated 790,000 tonnes of wheat in an international tender. Traders said Russian wheat was among the purchases along with some Ukrainian and a range of other origins, especially from other Black Sea countries.
— Reporting for Reuters by Mark Weinraub in Chicago; additional reporting by Naveen Thukral in Singapore and Sybille de La Hamaide in Paris.
