Corn dropped for a second day on concern that the global economy will sag amid lower spending by U.S. consumers and companies, reducing demand for the grain used in food, feed and biofuels. Wheat and soybeans also fell. Corn futures for December delivery lost as much as 1.1 percent to $7.05 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade and were at $7.07 as of 10:27 a.m. Singapore time. Yesterday, they touched $7.185, the highest for a most-active contract since June 9, before ending lower. “Markets fear that the U.S. economic slowdown is not ‘transitory’ as believed by the Federal Reserve, but something more pervasive,” Natalie Robertson, a commodity analyst at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd., wrote in a report today. “The mood today is expected to remain glum.” U.S. service industries expanded in July at the slowest pace since February 2010, the Institute for Supply Management said yesterday. European services and manufacturing growth eased in July to the slowest pace in almost two years, London-based Markit Economics said. Manufacturing in the U.K., Russia and Australia also shrank, while the pace of factory output slowed in China, according to reports from the nations this week. The Thomson Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index of 19 raw materials yesterday dropped 1.3 percent, the most since June 23. U.S. initial jobless claims climbed by 7,000 to 405,000 last week, according to the median estimate of economists in a Bloomberg News survey before today’s data. The jobless rate was unchanged at 9.2 percent, other surveys showed. Corn has rallied 70 percent in the past year on expectations of increased demand for ethanol and animal feed. Russian Exports Wheat declined for a second day on renewed concern that rising Russian exports may curb demand for supplies from the U.S., the world’s biggest shipper. The December-delivery contract dropped as much as 1 percent to $7.425 a bushel and last traded at $7.44 a bushel. Russia may export 20 million to 25 million metric tons of grain this season, Interfax reported yesterday, citing Grain Union President Arkady Zlochevsky. Russia lifted an export ban on July 1 after the most-severe drought in 50 years cut grain production in 2010. The nation was the world’s second-largest wheat exporter during the 2009-2010 season, International Grains Council data show. Russia may harvest 54 million tons of wheat in the year that began July 1, up from 41.508 million a year earlier, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s unit, Foreign Agricultural Service, said in a report posted on its website yesterday. Soybean futures for November delivery decreased 0.6 percent to $13.645 a bushel. Futures have advanced 33 percent in the past year. To contact the reporter on this story: Sungwoo Park in Seoul at spark47@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: Richard Dobson at

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