Chicago grain and soybean futures edged higher on Monday to recover from multi-week lows as traders returning from year-end holidays assessed crop weather and the potential impact of annual adjustments by commodity index funds.

Ample global supplies continued to hang over grain markets, with Argentina and Australia wrapping up bumper wheat harvests and Brazil starting to bring in what is forecast to be a record soybean crop.

The most-active soybean contract on the Chicago Board of Trade was up 0.7% at $10.53-1/2 a bushel at 1246 GMT. CBOT wheat gained 0.4% to $5.08-1/2 a bushel while corn added 0.6% to $4.40-1/4 a bushel.

On Friday, soybeans and wheat struck their lowest since late October while corn reached a two-week low.

“Soybeans recouped part of Friday’s losses on bargain buying,” said Cheang Kang Wei, vice president at StoneX in Singapore.

“Gains were capped by ample global supplies, competitively priced Brazilian exports and generally favourable weather across South America,” he added.

Dry conditions in part of the U.S. Plains were lending some support to wheat in an early risk for next summer’s harvest.

The wheat market continued to monitor developments in Russia’s war in Ukraine. An overnight attack on Kyiv killed two people in the Ukrainian capital, according to authorities.

Traders were also watching for positioning by investment funds in the coming days linked to annual changes in the composition of commodity indexes. The reweighting was expected to lead to fund buying of wheat and corn, analysts said.

Corn found some support in brisk U.S. exports, though traders remained cautious about Chinese demand for U.S. soybeans despite several million metric tons booked as part of a bilateral trade truce.
Source: Reuters