Corn and soybean futures closed lower on Thursday on pressure from large South American supplies, while wheat ended mixed.
Corn was weaker even as the USDA’s Foreign Agriculture Service lowered its estimate of the Argentina corn crop to 51 million tonnes, down 10% from its January estimate and below the official USDA forecast of 55 million. The USDA weekly export sales report this morning pegged bookings of US corn for the week ended April 11 at 501,166 tonnes, within trade expectations. May was down 3 ½ cents to $4.26 ¾, and December lost 4 ¾ cents to $4.60.
Heavy selling by Brazilian producers amid currency weakness added to the downside in soybeans. Weekly export sales of 485,795 tonnes fell within trade guesses. May beans lost 15 ¼ cents to $11.34 ¼, and November dropped 12 cents to $11.49 ¼.
Some support for wheat came from dry weather for the US winter wheat crop on the southern Plains, although large Black Sea supplies continued to overhanmg the market. The amount of US winter wheat area impacted by drought ticked modestly higher, increasing to around 24% as of Tuesday from 17-18% the past few weeks. The export sales report showed wheat with the second net reduction for the marketing year, with net cancellations of 93,556 tonnes. Much of that was due to a net cancellation of 123,700 tonnes for China and 48,000 tonnes for unknown destinations. New-crop bookings were at a three-week low of just over 222,000 tonnes. May Chicago wheat slipped a ¼-cent gain to $5.36 ¾, while May Kansas City gained 4 ½ cents to $5.77 ¼, and May Minneapolis added 5 ½ cents to $6.38 ¾.
