Wheat Drops with Rain from Australia to Russia

by

By Phoebe Sedgman and Whitney Mcferron

(Bloomberg) – Wheat slid for a fourth session in five in Chicago on speculation rain from Russia to Australia may boost global harvests. Corn fell and soybeans advanced.

Areas of western Russia and northern Kazakhstan will have showers and cooling temperatures this week, easing stress on developing crops, Telvent DTN said today in a report. Between 10 millimeters (0.4 inch) and 50 millimeters fell in Australia’s eastern grain-growing regions in the week ended May 28, according to the nation’s Bureau of Meteorology.

“Recent rainfall in southern Russia and eastern Australia has helped ease wheat-production worries,” Luke Mathews, a strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), wrote in a note today. Russia’s harvest begins in July, while Australian crops will be collected starting in October.

Wheat for July delivery fell 1.3 percent to $6.715 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade by 1:23 p.m. London time. The most-active contract is up 2.6 percent this month and 2.9 percent in 2012. Markets were shut yesterday for the Memorial Day holiday.

In Paris, November-delivery milling wheat declined 1.3 percent to 213.25 euros ($267.18) a metric ton on NYSE Liffe.

Australia is projected to be the world’s second-largest wheat exporter in the 2012-13 season and Russia will rank fourth, U.S. Department of Agriculture data show.

Ukraine and Russia, accounting for 11 percent of world output in 2011-12, have endured drought conditions for three months, University College London data show. In the U.S., rain has been below normal from Texas to Ohio in the past 14 days, QT Weather said in a report yesterday.

Wheat demand from feed users may exceed the USDA’s 180 million-bushel estimate for the year ending May 31, as the grain remains at a discount to corn in the Midwest, Morgan Stanley analyst Hussein Allidina wrote in a report e-mailed today.

July-delivery corn fell 0.3 percent to $5.7675 a bushel in Chicago. The grain has slid 9.1 percent this month, headed for a third decline, and is down 11 percent this year.

Soybeans for July delivery gained 0.7 percent to $13.91 a bushel. The oilseed, down 7.6 percent in May, is still up 15 percent this year after dry weather hurt South American crops.

Source:  Bloomberg

Posted by Haylie Shipp

 

Subscribe
Notify of
guest
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x