Off the wire
• 1st LD Writethru: Oil prices drop amid disappointing output freeze deal  • Urgent: U.S. stocks keep rising after holiday  • 1st LD Writethru: U.S. dollar soars after holiday weekend  • U.S.-led airstrikes kill 15 civilians in Syria  • 1st LD Writethru: Chinese eating less salt, but still too much: study  • Rwanda enacts friendly law for new mothers  • Eastern African Standby Force to join AU peacekeepers if deployed into Burundi  • UN food agency reaches more people displaced by Boko Haram violence in Chad, Cameroon  • Urgent: Oil prices drop amid disappointing output freeze  • Moscow dismisses accusation of Russia bombing Syrian hospitals  
You are here: 　 Home

Chicago wheat, soybeans, corn futures close higher on technical buying

Xinhua, February 17, 2016 Adjust font size:

Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) wheat, soybean and corn futures all closed higher Tuesday, as the market was prone to bouts of short covering by funds, which are currently holding very large short positions in grains and soybeans.

Chicago wheat led gains as the most active wheat contract for March delivery rose 6.75 cents, or 1.48 percent, to close at 4.6425 dollars per bushel. Corn for March delivery added 4.25 cents, or 1.18 percent, to close at 3.63 U.S. dollars per bushel. March soybean delivery gained 7 cents, or 0.8 percent, to close at 8.7975 dollars per bushel.

Investors' technical buying was triggered by a report released by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission last Friday indicating speculative investors' net-short contracts through the week ending Feb. 9 had built a larger-than-expected, net-short position in agricultural markets.

Chicago grains and soybean got some support from the U.S. weekly export inspections released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Tuesday showing that corn shipments through the week ending Feb. 11 were up about 50 percent from the previous week, and soybean export inspections rose by more than 37 percent from the prior week, but wheat exports logged a drop of more than 4 percent, respectively.

For their respective crop years to date, the U.S. corn shipments were down about 20 percent from a year ago, wheat export inspections dropped by 11.5 percent from last year, while soybean shipments were down almost 11 percent,according to the USDA.

Industry analysts believe the drops are all somehow lower than a couple of weeks ago. Endit