GRAINS-Wheat firms after losses, improved US crop condition caps gains
SINGAPORE, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Chicago wheat rose for the first time in three sessions on Tuesday as bargain buying supporting the market, although improved health of the U.S. winter crop capped the upside potential in prices.
Soybeans gained ground as well amid concerns over planting delays in Brazil, and corn inched higher.
FUNDAMENTALS
The most-active wheat contract on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) Wv1 rose 0.4% to $5.63-1/4 a bushel, as of 0107 GMT, after dropping 2.8% in the last session.
Soybeans Sv1 added 0.2% to $13.32-1/4 a bushel and corn Cv1 rose 0.1% to $4.56 a bushel.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on Monday rated 50% of the U.S. winter wheat crop in good-to-excellent condition, up two percentage points from last week and a bigger improvement than most analysts expected.
Export prices for Russian wheat rose last week, helped by a continuing drop in shipments owing to stormy weather in ports, analysts said.
The price of 12.5% protein Russian wheat scheduled for free-on-board delivery in January was $235 per metric ton last week, up $5 from the previous week, the IKAR agriculture consultancy reported.
For soybeans, the market continues to closely monitor weather in Brazil, the world's the top exporter, where crop-threatening conditions remain in the forecast.
Brazil's 2023/24 soybean planting had reached 74% of the expected area as of Thursday, agribusiness consultancy AgRural said on Monday, making it the slowest progress for the period in eight years as the country grapples with bad weather.
Sowing was up 6 percentage points from the previous week but continued to lag far behind last year's levels, when 87% of the areas had been planted at the same time, and is now the slowest since 2015/16.
The U.S. corn crop was 96% harvested by Sunday, the USDA said, behind the average trade estimate of 97% but ahead of the five-year average of 95%. The U.S. soybean harvest was 95% complete by Nov. 12, the government reported previously.
Large speculators increased their net short position in Chicago Board of Trade corn futures in the week to Nov. 21, regulatory data released on Monday showed.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission's weekly commitments of traders report also showed that noncommercial traders, a category that includes hedge funds, increased their net short position in CBOT wheat and cut their net long position in soybeans.
MARKET NEWS
MSCI's global equity index fell on Monday and U.S. Treasury yields fell while investors digested weak U.S. housing data and waited for key inflation readings later in the week.
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