SINGAPORE- Chicago corn was largely unchanged on Wednesday and near a decade-high scaled in the previous session, as traders fretted over planting delays in the United States and a lack of supplies from war-torn Ukraine.
Soybeans and wheat inched higher.
“The estimated value of grain and oilseed market open interest closed the week at a historical high, driven by elevated prices as shortages of corn, wheat and vegetable oils appear imminent amid persistent and intensifying conflict in leading producer and exporter Ukraine,” JPMorgan analysts said in a note.
The most-active corn contract was unmoved at $7.99-3/4 a bushel, but not far from its highest since September 2012 reached on Tuesday.
Soybeans gained 0.2 percent at $16.95 a bushel and wheat rose 0.3 percent to $11.11-3/4 a bushel.
Chilly weather is delaying the start of US corn plantings. The market is particularly sensitive to potential problems for the US crop as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has stalled Ukrainian grain exports.
US corn planting was 4 percent complete, as of Sunday, below the five-year average of 6 percent, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) said in a weekly report on Monday.
Analysts surveyed by Reuters were expecting 5 percent.
Dry weather forecast for the second half of April in Brazil’s central area, where some of the country’s largest grain producing states are located, might limit yields for the 2021/22 second corn crop, experts said.
After seeing its first crop affected by the lack of rainfall, Brazil now hopes to harvest an 88.5 million-ton second crop, which accounts for nearly 75 percent of its total corn output in a given year.
For wheat, the USDA crop report also underscored drought risks to the crop that could exacerbate a shortfall in supply from Ukraine. The agency rated 30 percent of US winter wheat in good-to-excellent condition, a 26-year low. — Reuters
