Chicago futures ease with focus on exports, Black Sea corridor

Chicago corn, wheat and soybean futures edged lower on Friday as a sharp rise in the dollar tempered export sentiment, while traders continued to monitor talks to prolong a wartime shipping corridor for Ukrainian grain.

The most-active soybean contract on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) Sv1 was down 0.7% at $13.82 a bushel by 1120 GMT.

CBOT wheat gave up 1.1% to $8.39-3/4 a bushel while corn Cv1 lost 0.5% to $6.80-3/4 a bushel.

Soybeans had climbed on Thursday after the biggest weekly U.S. export sales in a year along with the announcement of a new export sale to China.

But Friday’s rally in the dollar index .DXY, as investors remained preoccupied by interest rate hikes to counter inflation, put the focus back on export headwinds.

A stronger dollar makes U.S. commodities more expensive overseas.

“Economic concerns … still linger and overshadow the demand outlook for commodities,” consultancy CRM Agri said in a note.

An advancing U.S. corn and soybean harvest was also creating supply pressure, along with early expectations for a bumper Brazilian soy crop next year.

Grain markets have also been reacting to mixed indications regarding talks to prolong a United Nations-backed shipping corridor from Ukrainian ports.

After Russian officials renewed criticism of Moscow’s concerns not being addressed, Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan was quoted on Friday saying he saw no obstacles to the corridor deal being extended.

U.S. and European wheat futures fell to a four-week low earlier this week on hopes that the corridor will be maintained beyond November, although a wave of tenders from importers helped underpin prices.

Wheat traders are also monitoring declining prospects for Argentina’s drought-affected harvest. The Buenos Aires Grains Exchange on Thursday cut its forecast of the upcoming crop to 15.2 million tonnes from 16.5 million a week earlier.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Gus Trompiz in Paris and Naveen Thukral in Singapore; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Devika Syamnath)