By Naveen Thukral
SINGAPORE, Nov 30 (Reuters) – Chicago wheat slid to a two-week low on Tuesday after a U.S. report showed the condition of the winter crop was better than expected and eased concerns over world supplies.
Soybeans dropped for a fifth consecutive session while corn was little changed.
“Wheat supply issues have been more or less priced in the market,” said one Singapore-based trader. “We have a big crop coming out of Australia, even though there are quality issues.”
The most-active wheat contract on the Chicago Board Of Trade (CBOT) Wv1 lost 0.4% to $8.19-1/4 a bushel by 0507 GMT, near the session low of $8.18 a bushel – the weakest since Nov. 16.
Soybeans Sv1 gave up 0.2% to $12.39-1/2 a bushel and corn Cv1 was unmoved at $5.82-1/4 a bushel.
For the month, wheat and corn are set to end November on a positive note, while soybeans are down.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in its last weekly crop progress report for 2021 on Monday rated 44% of U.S. winter wheat in good-to-excellent condition, steady with the previous week, despite trade expectations for a slight decline.
Australia’s chief commodity forecaster raised its official estimate for the 2021/22 crop.
Global wheat markets had rallied early last week on concerns that excessive harvest-time rains damaged wheat crop quality amid strong demand.
Egypt’s state grains buyer, the General Authority for Supply Commodities, said on Monday it bought 600,000 tonnes of wheat in an international tender for Jan. 9-20 shipment.
The U.S. corn and soybean harvests are virtually complete, with the USDA reporting both crops as 95% harvested by Nov. 21.
The U.S. soybean crush in October likely jumped to a nine-month high of 5.868 million short tons, or 195.6 million bushels, according to the average forecast of nine analysts surveyed by Reuters ahead of a monthly USDA report.
Large speculators raised their net long position in CBOT corn futures in the week ended Nov. 23, regulatory data released on Monday showed.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s weekly commitments of traders report also showed that non-commercial traders, a category that includes hedge funds, trimmed their net short position in CBOT wheat and switched to a net long position in soybeans.
(Reporting by Naveen Thukral; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Subhranshu Sahu)
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