BLBG:Soybeans Drop to Lowest Since July on U.S. Harvest, Brazil Rains
Soybeans tumbled to the lowest in more than two months as an early U.S. harvest and improving weather conditions in South America, the largest growing region, eased supply concerns.
Parts of southern Brazil, northern Argentina and Uruguay will have moderate to heavy rains this week, while drier weather in Mato Grosso, Brazil, will allow fieldwork to accelerate, AccuWeather.com said in a report yesterday. In the U.S., 41 percent of the crop was harvested as of Sept. 30, compared with 15 percent a year earlier, the Department of Agriculture said Oct. 1.
“We’re seeing continued pressure coming through that market,” Luke Mathews, a commodity strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), said from Sydney today. “The rapid pace of the soybean harvest, the favorable planting conditions we’re eying in South America and the negative influence of a very weak palm-oil complex are weighing on global oilseed prices.”
Soybeans for November delivery fell 1.1 percent to $15.1325 a bushel at 4:39 a.m. on the Chicago Board of Trade, after touching $15.04, the lowest since July 5. Soybeans rose to a record $17.89 last month as the worst drought in half a century was set to cut U.S. output to the smallest in nine years.
Palm-oil futures in Malaysia yesterday slumped 8.5 percent to 2,255 ringgit ($736) a metric ton, the lowest close since November 2009, as stockpiles expanded in Asia. Prices rebounded 4.9 percent today to 2,366 ringgit.
Corn for December delivery slipped 1.2 percent to $7.495 a bushel. The price has dropped 12 percent since reaching a record $8.49 a bushel on Aug. 10.
U.S. corn production may total 10.824 billion bushels and soybean output may be 2.849 billion bushels, larger than the USDA currently forecasts, INTL FCStone Inc. said yesterday. The USDA is scheduled to update its projections Oct. 11.
Wheat for December delivery fell 1.1 percent to $8.6225 a bushel in Chicago. In Paris, November-delivery milling wheat dropped 0.5 percent to 258 euros ($333) a ton on NYSE Liffe.
Egypt is seeking at least 60,000 tons of milling wheat in a tender today for delivery from Dec. 11 to Dec. 20. France is “likely to provide the most competitive prices,” Arnaud Saulais, a broker at Starsupply Commodity Brokers in Nyon, Switzerland, said in an e-mailed report today.
To contact the reporters on this story: Luzi Ann Javier in Singapore at ljavier@bloomberg.net; Whitney McFerron in London at wmcferron1@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Claudia Carpenter at ccarpenter2@bloomberg.net
