Monday 7 October 2013

GRAINS-Wheat near 3-1/2 month high on supply concerns, soy firm

Mon Oct 7, 2013
* U.S. wheat rises for nine out of 11 sessions

* Production concerns in top suppliers support wheat

* Soybeans up as Informa cuts U.S. output forecast
By Naveen Thukral
SINGAPORE, Oct 7 (Reuters) - U.S. wheat edged higher on Monday, rising for nine out of 11 sessions and trading near a 3-1/2 month high on concerns over weather damaging crops in key
producing countries.

Soybeans climbed 0.4 percent, gaining from last week's 19-month low after a forecast showed lower U.S. production, while corn ticked down on seasonal harvest pressure.

"We are seeing strong export demand for U.S. wheat and production in Ukraine is likely to be hit because of adverse weather, so you are going to see less supplies," said Vanessa
Tan, an investment analyst at Phillip Futures Singapore.

Chicago Board of Trade front-month wheat had risen 0.3 percent to $6.88-3/4 a bushel by 0243 GMT, trading near Thursday's highest since June 21.

Ukraine's wheat harvest could be down by a third to about 15 million tonnes in 2014 from around 22 million tonnes this year because heavy rains will cut the sowing area, the agriculture
minister said on Friday.

Rains earlier this year damaged the wheat crop in top grower China, while frost hampered wheat in Argentina and Brazil. All this led to increased demand for exports from the United States
and Canada.

This year's Canadian wheat crop will be the largest ever, but the estimate of 33.026 million tonnes was within analysts' expectations, according to data released by Statistics Canada.

STORM BREWING

Soybeans for delivery in November added 0.4 percent to $13.00-1/2 a bushel and December corn eased 0.1 percent to $4.42-3/4 a bushel.

"There are forecasts of a storm later this week which could slow the U.S. soybean and corn harvest and we saw Informa lower its estimates for the U.S. soybean crop," said Tan.

Private analytics firm Informa Economics lowered its estimate of U.S. 2013 soybean yield and production while raising its corn crop estimates.

The firm, in its monthly U.S. and world crop reports issued on Friday, projected U.S. 2013 soybean production at 3.176 billion bushels, with a yield of 41.7 bushels per acre (bpa).

The figures are below Informa's Sept. 20 estimates for a 3.224 billion bushel crop with a yield of 42.4 bpa.

Informa raised its corn yield estimate to 158.8 bpa from 157.6, and increased its production forecast to 14.010 billion bushels from 13.889 billion.

Wet weather and another storm system later this week will slow harvesting of the 2013 U.S. corn and soybean crops, an agricultural meteorologist said.

The ongoing shutdown of the U.S. government - including the Department of Agriculture - is likely to delay the release of the U.S. harvest report on Monday and the agency's monthly
supply and demand report due in a week.

There was additional support for soybeans with lack of rainfall delaying soy planting in Brazil.

Soy planting in Mato Grosso, Brazil's top soy state, is 7.2 percentage points behind the same time a year ago because of too little rain, the state's farm research institute IMEA said.

Just 1.4 percent of the expected crop has been sown, compared with 8.6 percent on Oct. 4, 2012, IMEA said in a weekly report.

Commodity funds bought a net 5,000 CBOT corn contracts on Friday, trade sources said. They purchased 6,000 soybean contracts and sold 2,000 wheat.

  Prices at 0243 GMT
  Contract        Last    Change  Pct chg  MA 30   RSI
  CBOT wheat     688.75     1.75  +0.25%   867.37   72
  CBOT corn      442.75    -0.50  -0.11%   756.67   34
  CBOT soy      1300.50     5.50  +0.42%   1573.89   45
  CBOT rice      $14.97    $0.10  +0.64%   $15.47   30
  WTI crude     $103.35   -$0.49  -0.47%   $89.43   45
  Currencies                                               
  Euro/dlr       $1.357   $0.128
  USD/AUD         0.942   -0.113
  Most active contracts
  Wheat, corn and soy US cents/bushel. Rice: USD per hundredweight
  RSI 14, exponential

(Reporting by Naveen Thukral; Editing by Joseph Radford)

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