By Michael Hirtzer
CHICAGO, Oct 3 (Reuters) – U.S. soybeans edged lower on
Friday, losing ground for the first time in three sessions on
pressure from impressive yield results during the early days of
a record harvest.
But prices for the oilseed were on track for a modest weekly
gain at the Chicago Board of Trade after rains delayed fieldwork
in the Midwestern crop belt during the latter half of the week.
Corn and wheat futures each were nearly unchanged as the
rains and technically oversold conditions supported prices, even
as plentiful supplies and a rising dollar that made U.S. grain
less competitive in global markets limited the upside.
The U.S. dollar surged to a four-year high on a bullish U.S.
jobs report, which could allow shippers in Ukraine,
Russia and South America to further undercut U.S. grain in top
buying regions in Asia and the Middle East.
Soybeans <0#S:> posted the largest declines, with CBOT
November soy shedding 8 cents to $9.16-1/2 per bushel -
more than 10 cents above their 4-1/2 year low on Wednesday.
“The harvest progress in beans is going to be north of 30
percent for Monday. I don’t know about corn, maybe pushing 20
percent. An awful lot of combines went to beans last week.
Yields are still phenomenal,” said Roy Huckabay, an analyst at
brokerage the Linn Group.
CBOT December corn was down 1/2 cent at $3.22-1/4 per
bushel, above the recent five-year low of $3.18-1/4. CBOT
December wheat was up 1/4 cent at $4.83 as of 11:15 a.m.
CDT (1615 GMT) after hitting a four-year low last week.
Wheat was heading for a weekly gain of 1.6 percent, the
first such gain in six weeks. Soybeans were on track of a weekly
gain of less than 1 percent, while corn was on pace to end the
week nearly flat.
“With all markets this week moving to four to five-year
lows, it can only be expected that at some time this will
provoke a ‘bounce’ in the market,” David Sheppard, managing
director of UK merchant Gleadell, said in a market note.
Storms delayed the harvest in much of the Corn Belt on
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, the Commodity Weather Group
said, adding that more rains will slow the harvest for the next
two weeks.
However, the delays are expected to result in only minimal
crop loss, with several brokerages such as INTL FCStone and the
Linn Group estimating corn and soy yields above the latest U.S.
Agriculture Department forecasts. The USDA will release its
latest guidance in a week.
Private analytics firm Informa Economics in a monthly crop
report issued to clients on Friday projected U.S. 2014 corn
production at 14.395 billion bushels, with a yield of 176.4
bushels per acre (bpa). The figures are above Informa’s Sept. 19
estimates for a 14.024 billion-bushel crop with a yield of 171.8
bpa.
Informa raised its soybean yield estimate to 48.5 bpa from
46.5, and increased its production forecast to 4.017 billion
bushels from 3.857 billion. The firm calculated harvested area
for corn at 81.611 million acres and for soybeans at 82.880
million acres.
(Additional reporting by Julie Ingwersen in Chicago, Nigel Hunt
in London and Naveen Thukral in Singapore; Editing by Pravin
Char and Andre Grenon)