Chicago | Reuters—Chicago Board of Trade soybean futures finished higher on short covering on Tuesday as the market extended a rebound from a four-year low reached last week.
Corn futures also advanced, while wheat futures slipped before U.S. grain markets shut on Wednesday for the Christmas holiday.
Soy futures came under pressure recently from forecasts for record-large output in Brazil, which is the world’s biggest exporter of the oilseed and competes with the U.S. for global sales.
Those expectations should largely be factored into the market for now, said Matt Wiegand, a commodity broker for risk management firm FuturesOne in Nebraska. A recovery in soymeal futures helped support soybeans, he added, after soymeal SMv1 also sank to a 2020 low last week.
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“It’s been beat up for so long,” Wiegand said of soymeal.
Most-active CBOT March soybean futures Sv1 were 5-3/4 cents higher at $9.81-1/4 per bushel at the close of trading.
The contract will struggle to break through technical resistance at $10 per bushel if crop weather remains favorable in South America, said Tomm Pfitzenmaier, analyst for Summit Commodity Brokerage in Iowa.
“By next summer the world is going to be awash in soybeans, and that will eventually put a lot of downward pressure on prices,” Pfitzenmaier said.
CBOT corn Cv1 was up 3/4 cent at $4.48-1/2 a bushel at the close of trading, while wheat Wv1 was down 5-3/4 cents at $5.34-3/4 a bushel.
Strength in the dollar hung over the grain markets as it makes U.S. farm products look more expensive in export markets, traders said.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is slated to issue weekly U.S. grain and soy export sales data on Friday, one day later than usual due to the Christmas holiday.
—Additional reporting by Mei Mei Chu in Beijing and Sybille de La Hamaide in Paris
