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Wheat steadies after latest 21-month low
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Corn off 9-month low, soybeans firm after 6-month trough
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US rain relief, Brazil export competition weigh on prices
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Investors eye US inflation data, Black Sea corridor talks
(Updates with European trading, changes byline/dateline)
By Gus Trompiz and Naveen Thukral
PARIS/SINGAPORE, April 28 (Reuters) - Chicago wheat and
soybean futures edged higher up on Friday and corn was little
changed, as grain markets consolidated following multi-month
lows while investors assessed ample global crop supplies and
mixed economic indicators.
The most-active wheat contract on the Chicago Board of Trade
(CBOT) was up 0.2% at $6.30-3/4 a bushel by 1208 GMT,
after earlier touching a latest 21-month low at $6.25-1/4.
CBOT corn was 0.1% lower at $5.81 a bushel, after
earlier setting a new nine-month low at $5.75-1/2. Soybeans added 0.6% to $14.12 a bushel to recover from Thursday's
near six-month low of $14.01-3/4.
Grain markets drew some support from a slight recovery in
crude oil. Investors were awaiting U.S. inflation data at 1230 GMT for
a fresh economic pointer after mixed growth and inflation
readings in Europe and the United States since Thursday. Forecasts of rains in the drought-hit U.S. Plains have eased
concerns about hard red winter wheat and encouraged the wheat
market to focus on ample global supplies, despite Moscow's
repeated warnings it may quit a Black Sea corridor deal allowing
shipments from Ukraine by May 18.
"It is almost as if the market were looking beyond this and
assuming that Russia, even if it temporarily withdraws from the
deal, will not do so permanently," Commerzbank said in a note.
The corn market was dented on Thursday by the U.S.
Department of Agriculture's announcement that private exporters
cancelled sales of 233,000 tonnes of U.S. old-crop corn to
China, underscoring concerns that a large Brazilian crop was
diverting demand from the United States.
A bumper Brazilian soybean crop is also expected to flow
onto export markets, offsetting a drought-hit harvest in
Argentina.
(Reporting by Gus Trompiz in Paris and Naveen Thukral in
Singapore; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
