The most active corn contract for May delivery rose 0.25 cents, or 0.07 percent, to close at 3.4875 U.S. dollars per bushel. May wheat shed 11 cents, or 1.9 percent, to close at 5.69 dollars per bushel. May soybeans slipped 1.25 cents, or 0.14 percent, to settle at 8.8025 dollars per bushel.
CBOT brokers estimate that funds have sold 3,100 contracts of wheat, 1,900 contracts of corn and 1,200 contracts of soybeans.
U.S. weekly export sales for the week ending March 19 were 27.2 million bushels of wheat, 71.4 million bushels of corn, and 33.2 million bushels of soybeans. The corn, wheat and soybean sales were all larger than what traders had expected.
For respective crop years to date, the United States has sold 908 million bushels of wheat, up 4.6 percent year on year; 1,214 million bushels of corn, down 24 percent; and 1,319 million bushels of soybeans, down 14 percent.
Market analysts predict that U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will reduce U.S. 2019/20 corn exports by 25-75 million bushels and soybeans exports by 50 to 100 million bushels in its April World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report.
CBOT markets continue struggling with sizable ethanol industry loss, and this capped the rally of corn. Traders hold that U.S. farmer are switching acres from corn to soybeans. But this change cannot be confirmed until June 30, when 2020 USDA Seedlings report comes out.
Market analysts hold that traders are waiting for the stocks/seeding report to be released next Tuesday as trade volume remains restricted by COVID-19 uncertainty.
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