BLBG:Wheat Drops As Rain From Russia To Australia Boosts Crop Outlook
Wheat slid for a fourth session in five in Chicago on speculation rain from Russia to Australia may boost global harvests. Corn and soybeans advanced.
Rain may fall in central parts of Russia starting today and in southern areas tomorrow, according to AccuWeather Inc. Between 10 millimeters (0.4 inch) and 50 millimeters fell in Australia’s eastern grain-growing regions in the week ended May 28, according to the nation’s Bureau of Meteorology.
“Recent rainfall in southern Russia and eastern Australia has helped ease wheat-production worries,” Luke Mathews, a strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), wrote in a note today. Russia’s harvest begins in July, while Australian crops will be collected starting in October.
Wheat for July delivery fell 1 percent to $6.73 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade by 10:44 a.m. London time. The most- active contract is up 2.8 percent this month and 3.1 percent in 2012. Markets were shut yesterday for the Memorial Day holiday.
In Paris, November-delivery milling wheat declined 0.8 percent to 214.25 euros ($269.01) a metric ton on NYSE Liffe.
Australia is projected to be the world’s second-largest wheat exporter in the 2012-13 season and Russia will rank fourth, U.S. Department of Agriculture data show.
Ukraine and Russia, accounting for 11 percent of world output in 2011-12, have endured drought conditions for three months, University College London data show. In the U.S., rain has been below normal from Texas to Ohio in the past 14 days, QT Weather said in a report yesterday.
Wheat demand from feed users may exceed the USDA’s 180 million-bushel estimate for the year ending May 31, as the grain remains at a discount to corn in the Midwest, Morgan Stanley analyst Hussein Allidina wrote in a report e-mailed today.
July-delivery corn advanced 0.5 percent to $5.815 a bushel in Chicago. The grain has slid 8.3 percent this month, headed for a third decline, and is down 10 percent this year.
Soybeans for July delivery gained 1 percent to $13.955 a bushel. The oilseed, down 7.3 percent in May, is still up 16 percent this year after dry weather hurt South American crops.
To contact the reporters on this story: Phoebe Sedgman in Melbourne at psedgman2@bloomberg.net; Whitney McFerron in London at wmcferron1@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Claudia Carpenter at ccarpenter2@bloomberg.net
