BLBG:Corn, Soybeans Decline as Rains May Boost Brazil Crop Prospects
Corn fell to the lowest level in two weeks and soybeans dropped as rains forecast for this week in Brazil may help improve growing conditions. Wheat retreated.
Corn for delivery in December slipped as much as 0.7 percent to $7.3275 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade, the cheapest for the most-active contract since Oct. 15. Futures were at $7.33 at 9:59 a.m. in Singapore. Soybeans for January lost 1 percent to $15.485 a bushel, falling for a third day.
Showers may develop late this week or next weekend, after hot, dry weather stressed developing soybeans and corn crops in Brazil, Telvent DTN Inc. said in a forecast on Oct. 26. Brazil is set to be the world’s largest soybean grower and exporter this year and the biggest corn shipper after the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“The key thing that the market is looking at right now is the crop and planting conditions on Brazil and Argentina,” Michael Creed, an agribusiness economist at National Australia Bank Ltd., said by phone from Melbourne today. “Rains forecast in Brazil may be pushing prices a bit lower.”
Wheat for December delivery lost 0.3 percent to $8.61 a bushel in Chicago, after gaining 0.3 percent earlier.
Production in Russia, the third-largest wheat shipper in 2011-2012, fell 33 percent to 39.6 million metric tons as of Oct. 26, compared with the same date a year earlier, according to the country’s agriculture ministry. That’s bigger than the 38 million tons estimated by the USDA on Oct. 11.
To contact the reporter on this story: Luzi Ann Javier in Singapore at ljavier@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Poole at jpoole4@bloomberg.net
