Posted on November, 6, 2024 at 05:07 pm
Chicago Board of Trade soybean and corn futures edged higher on Tuesday as traders adjusted positions and moved to the sidelines while awaiting results from the U.S. presidential election.
Traders were also looking ahead to a U.S. interest rate decision and crop forecasts due later this week.
Tariffs proposed by Donald Trump, the Republican candidate and former president, are a particular focus for grain traders in the election, as they could disrupt U.S. agricultural trade. Trump’s first term featured a trade war with China.
“For today it’s 90 per cent election” that is influencing crop prices, said Rich Nelson, chief strategist for brokerage Allendale.
Most-active CBOT soybeans Sv1 rose 4-1/2 cents to $10.01-3/4 per bushel and corn Cv1 crept 2 cents higher to $4.18-1/2 per bushel. CBOT wheat Wv1 ended up 3-3/4 cents at $5.72-1/2 per bushel.
A weaker dollar and a flurry of export sales for U.S. corn and soybeans underpinned the markets. Exporters sold 124,000 metric tons of U.S. corn to unknown buyers, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said.
Still, bumper U.S. corn and soybean harvests and improving conditions in dry winter wheat belts kept a lid on prices.
The USDA said on Monday that 41 per cent of the recently seeded U.S. wheat crop was in good-to-excellent condition, up from the previous week but still the second-lowest score on record.
“It’s a scary sounding story,” Nelson said. Yet “weather at planting is not a determinant of final yields. Basically, spring rains are.”
Traders await the U.S. Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision, to be announced at the end of a policy meeting on Thursday. That is followed by USDA’s monthly supply and demand estimates on Friday.
For soybeans, the agency is expected to trim its 2024-25 U.S. output estimate from October and lower its domestic ending stocks forecast to 532 million bushels from 550 million, according to Reuters polls of analysts.
“We can expect lots of volatility through the end of the week,” Peak Trading Research said.
Source: Grain News