BLBG:Wheat Advances for Second Day on Signs of Rising Import Demand
Wheat climbed for a second day on signs of increased demand from importers amid shrinking supply from shippers including Argentina. Soybeans and corn dropped.
Wheat for delivery in March climbed as much as 0.7 percent to $8.165 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade, and was at $8.13 at 1:20 p.m. in Singapore. While that takes its gain this year to 25 percent, making it the best performer on the Standard & Poor’s GSCI Commodity Index of 24 raw materials, it’s dropped 14 percent since trading in July at the highest level in almost four years.
Egypt, the world’s biggest importer, is seeking to buy at least 60,000 metric tons in a tender today, Nomani Nomani, vice chairman of the state grain buyer, said yesterday. Japan, Asia’s largest importer after Indonesia, plans to buy 121,026 tons from the U.S. and Canada tomorrow, the government said yesterday.
“It’s probably the Egyptian tender” that’s helping push prices higher, Paul Deane, an agricultural economist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd., said by phone from Melbourne today. “You’ve got those concerns about Argentina’s export availability as well. The funds have generally been on a liquidation phase, and that’s probably coming to an end.”
Speculators and money managers reduced their net-long positions in wheat futures and options by 67 percent to 11,219 contracts as of Dec. 11, from a week earlier, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show.
Production in Argentina, South America’s largest exporter, may fall to 9.4 million tons, 7 percent less than earlier forecast, the Rosario Cereals Exchange said Dec. 14. That’s below the 11.5 million tons predicted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Dec. 11.
Soybeans for delivery in March lost 0.3 percent to $14.5675 a bushel after dropping 1.9 percent yesterday on the cancellation of 420,000 tons of U.S. exports registered for delivery before Sept. 1, including 300,000 tons bound for China. The oilseed has risen 21 percent this year.
Corn for March delivery slipped 0.3 percent to $7.18 a bushel. Most-active prices have risen 11 percent this year.
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
