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Corn eases from 8-year peak, market eyes USDA supply-demand report

Chicago corn futures lost ground on Monday as the market took a breather after a rally to an eight-year high on supply concerns with traders focused on this week’s U.S. supply-demand report for a price direction.

Wheat fell more than 1%, easing for the first time in five sessions while soybeans slid around half a percent.

“Chicago corn prices have jumped and now the market is waiting to see the demand-and-supply situation,” said Phin Ziebell, agribusiness economist at National Australia Bank. “There is reduction in demand from the animal feed sector at these price levels.”

The most-active corn contract on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) was down 0.6% at $7.27-3/4 a bushel by 0250 GMT, after closing up 1.9% on Friday when prices hit a March 2013 high of $7.35-1/4 a bushel.

Wheat fell 1.2% to $7.53 a bushel and soybeans gave up 0.5% to $15.82 a bushel.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is due to issue its supply-demand report on Wednesday.

The USDA is expected to predict U.S. soybean ending stocks will remain tight at 138 million bushels, according to a Reuters poll of analysts.

They projected the agency will reduce its 2020/21 stocks estimate to 117 million bushels from 120 million bushels.

China’s purchases of corn and soybeans have underpinned prices.

Chinese importers bought 1.36 million tonnes of U.S. corn that will be shipped during the 2021/22 marketing year, which starts in September, according to USDA.

China’s 2021 corn output is forecast to rise 4.3% from the previous year to 272 million tonnes, a government think-tank said on Friday, in the first estimate by an official agency for the crop to be harvested later this year.

The condition of French soft wheat declined for a fourth consecutive week, but remained well above the level a year earlier, data from farm office FranceAgriMer showed on Friday, as crops emerged from a chilly, dry April.

Large speculators raised their net long positions in CBOT corn futures in the week ended May 4, regulatory data released on Friday showed.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s weekly commitments of traders report also showed that non-commercial traders, a category that includes hedge funds, increased their net short position in CBOT wheat and cut their net long position in soybeans.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Naveen Thukral, Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)

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