Chicago soybean and corn futures edged up on Thursday amid a broad-based rally in financial and commodity markets, but remained near one-month lows on concerns over tepid overseas demand for U.S. supplies.
Wheat inched higher but was also trading close to one-month lows after Russia, the world's top supplier of the commodity, raised its grain export forecast last week.
In competing Black Sea exporter Ukraine, grain exports have reached 21.7 million tonnes so far in the 2018/2019 season, compared with 19.9 million by the same point in the previous season, the agriculture ministry said on Wednesday.
Asian shares on Thursday latched on to a dramatic surge on Wall Street as markets, battered by recent deepening political and economic gloom, cheered upbeat U.S. data and the Trump administration's effort to shore up investor confidence.
Fresh Exports
The market was disappointed that there were no signs of fresh sales of U.S. soybeans to China, the world's top importer of the oilseed.
USDA data showed the United States inspected 651,181 tonnes of soybeans for export last week, sharply lower than expectations.
China bought U.S. soybeans on Dec. 12 in the first big deals in six months, after U.S. President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping met on Dec. 1 and set a 90-day negotiating window to resolve their trade differences.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is not publishing details of daily export sales during the federal government's partial shutdown.
Corn Prices
Corn was up 0.5 percent at $3.75-1/4 a bushel, after losing 1.2 percent the day before. Wheat added 0.1 percent
to $5.10-1/2 a bushel, having lost 1.3 percent on Wednesday.
In Europe wheat futures, which had been closed since early afternoon on Monday for a festive holiday, were trading lower to take account of the fall in Chicago.
Benchmark March on Euronext milling wheat futures was off 0.6 percent at 203.75 euros ($232.19) a tonne.
News by Reuters, edited by ESM. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
