By Michael Hirtzer
CHICAGO, Feb 9 (Reuters) – U.S. corn and soybean futures
edged higher on Monday, lifted by investor short-covering and
position-squaring ahead of the monthly U.S. Department of
Agriculture supply and demand report due on Tuesday.
The USDA said earlier that top soybean importer China
purchased 120,000 tonnes of the grain within 24 hours
, while analysts at AgRural and FCStone reduced
forecasts for the crop in Brazil.
“The attitude is that the Brazil crop size will come down
(in the USDA report), that you could see heightened soybean
disappearance from exports and a heightened disappearance (for
corn) from ethanol usage,” EFG Group analyst Tom Fritz said.
Still, the USDA was likely to make only minor adjustments to
its forecasts, and global grain supplies were ample in the early
days of bumper South American harvests, which follow record-high
U.S. corn and soy crops last autumn.
Corn for delivery in March gained 5-1/2 cents to
$3.91-1/4 per bushel, the highest level in more than two weeks,
while soybeans for March delivery were up 5 cents at
$9.78-1/2 at the Chicago Board of Trade.
CBOT March wheat was up 2-3/4 cents at $5.29 per
bushel, capping an “inside day” on the charts in thin volume
after notching its first weekly gain in seven weeks last week.
Soybeans reversed from earlier narrow losses tied to weak
economic data out of China. The country imported 6.88 million
tonnes of soybeans in January, down 19.3 percent from 8.53
million tonnes in December, figures from the General
Administration of Customs of China showed.
China’s overall trade performance slumped in January, with
exports falling 3.3 percent from a year earlier and imports
tumbling 19.9 percent, far worse than analysts had expected and
highlighting deepening economic weakness.
Some traders were exiting short positions ahead of the USDA
report after U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data
released on Friday showed a spike in bearish bets in corn and
wheat. Investors, including hedge funds, had their smallest long
stake in corn since October.
“Being short isn’t working, so it’s time to pull out,” Price
Group analyst Jack Scoville said of Monday’s grain trade.
(Additional reporting by Naveen Thukral in Singapore and
Sybille de La Hamaide in Paris; Editing by Tom Hogue, David
Evans, Lisa Von Ahn and Peter Galloway)