CHICAGO, March 16 (Xinhua) -- Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) agricultural futures closed mixed on Thursday, with corn and soybean rising and wheat falling.
The most active corn contract for May delivery rose 6.25 cents, or 1 percent, to settle at 6.3275 U.S. dollars per bushel. May wheat fell 3.75 cents, or 0.53 percent, to settle at 6.99 dollars per bushel. May soybean gained 2.25 cents, or 0.15 percent, to settle at 14.915 dollars per bushel.
Traders are loath to take on new risk until after the weekend. They do not want to get caught in any new bank liquidity issues.
China's U.S. corn purchases are expected to raise U.S. 2022-2023 corn exports to 1,900 million bushels and drop stocks by 50 million bushels. Russian and East European wheat offers to General Authority For Supply Commodities (GASC), Egypt's state grains buyer, are aggressive, which will cap U.S. wheat futures rallies. Chicago-based research company AgResource holds that this is no place to be selling CBOT breaks as a new Northern Hemisphere growing season is ahead and macro issues should be declining in importance.
The United Nations is demanding that Russia extend the Black Sea Grain Export Corridor for 120 days. However, Russia is unmoved from its offer of a 60-day extension. A 60-day extension means that the corridor pact expires on May 17.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced another 641,000 metric tons of U.S. 2022-2023 corn sold to China, which takes China's three-day purchases over 1.9 million metric tons. AgResource looks for China to import 8.5-9.0 million metric tons of U.S. corn in the 2022-2023 crop year.
U.S. weekly export sales for the week ending March 9 were 12.4 million bushels of wheat, 48.7 million bushels of corn and 24.4 million bushels of soybeans.
A pattern of complete dryness and abnormal warmth continues into the weekend for Central Argentina. The drought is ongoing and crop losses are building. Weather outlook for Brazil leans favorable.
