Chicago Board of Trade soybean and corn futures fell on Tuesday as traders squared positions ahead of the U.S. government's key monthly reports on global supply and demand.
"The next 36 hours are a countdown to Wednesday's WASDE fireworks," Peak Trading Research said in a note, referring to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's February World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates. Fresh estimates on the size of the corn and soybean harvests in Argentina will be the figures that investors are focused on as drought stressed the crops in that key global supplier throughout planting and early periods of development. "Normally February is a benign report, (but) Argentina is going to be kind of the wild card," said Terry Reilly, senior analyst at Futures International.
Wheat futures were firm, led higher by K.C. hard red
winter wheat contracts due to concerns about tight supplies of
high protein wheat.
At 10:13 a.m. CST (1613 GMT), CBOT March soybean futures were down 7-3/4 cents at $15.13-1/2 a bushel. CBOT March corn was off 3 cents at $6.76 a bushel.
CBOT March soft red winter wheat edged up 1-3/4 cents to $7.52 a bushel, while K.C. March hard red winter wheat gained 6-3/4 cents to $8.82-3/4 a bushel.
Investors were also waiting remarks from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell later on Tuesday for further clues on the U.S. central bank's interest rate policy. Soyoil futures were up 2.2% and on pace for their biggest gain since late December, tracking strength in palm oil after Indonesia said it would suspend some export permits. (Additional reporting by Gus Trompiz in Paris and Matthew Chye in Singapore; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu, Tomasz Janowski and Paul Simao)
Messaging: gus.trompiz.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))