The most active corn contract for March delivery rose 2.75 cents, or 0.59 percent, to settle at 4.725 U.S. dollars per bushel. March wheat gained 2.5 cents, or 0.41 percent, to settle at 6.125 dollars per bushel. March soybean fell 14 cents, or 1.06 percent, to settle at 13.0175 dollars per bushel.
Weather premium was being extracted from the soybean futures as rains fell across key areas of Mato Grosso Thursday morning. The market is in holiday-thin volume. Price moves remain exacerbated.
Chicago-based research company AgResource holds that downside risk in grains remains limited as U.S. corn export potential stays elevated. Soybean price determination centers on where Brazilian production falls within a range of 150-158 million metric tons.
Export sales in the week ending Dec. 14 were 39 million bushels of corn, as against 56 million bushels in the previous week and at the lower end of expectations; 12 million bushels of wheat, as against 55 million bushels in the previous week; and 73 million bushels of soybeans, as against 40 million bushels in the previous week, the highest since early November.
For respective crop years to date, the United States has sold 1,109 million bushels of corn, up 37 percent year on year; 546 million bushels of wheat, up 3 percent; and 1,299 million bushels of soybeans, down 16 percent from mid-Dec. 2022.
Steady rain will linger in Northern Brazil into Saturday, then a normal pattern of precipitation will resume thereafter into early January. The debate over final Brazilian crop size will remain unsettled until harvest nears. Regular rain is needed in Brazil well into early February.
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