The most active corn contract for May delivery rose 2.5 cents, or 0.59 percent, to settle at 4.2875 U.S. dollars per bushel. May wheat plunged 20 cents, or 3.63 percent, to settle at 5.31 dollars per bushel. May soybean fell 0.75 cents, or 0.07 percent, to settle at 11.4825 dollars per bushel.
World wheat markets are lower on the fall in Russian FOB wheat offers below 200 dollars per metric ton. Corn and soybeans found support on end user pricing and fund short covering.
China is expected to keep shipping out U.S. soft red winter (SRW) wheat purchases. Chicago-based research company AgResource holds that traders worry that U.S. soybean export sales will be poor Thursday with additional switches or net cancellations of unknown destination sales.
The United States produced 311 million gallons of ethanol last week, down 6 million gallons, but still a record for the week and up 5 percent from last year. U.S. ethanol stocks were up 3 percent year on year at 1,094 million gallons. U.S. gasoline consumption rose to 9.01 million barrels per day, up 5 percent year on year. The outlook for U.S. ethanol consumption is seasonally brightening.
Brazilian farmers have been more active sellers of soybeans on rallies early this week. It is estimated that through Saturday, Brazilian farmers will have harvested 57 percent to 58 percent of soybean crop. Winter corn seeding will be completed on a timely basis by March 15.
It will be slightly wetter for Northern and Central Brazil over the next 10 days. Elsewhere, favorable finishing rain will impact Argentina into mid-March.
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