Chicago agricultural commodities close higher on technical buying, strong export sales

Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) grains futures close higher Thursday on technical buying and strong weekly export sales.

The most active corn contract for December delivery rose 3.5 cents, or 1.03 percent, to 3.42 dollars per bushel. December wheat delivery added 6 cents, or 1.51 percent, to 4.03 dollars per bushel. January soybeans rose 3.75 cents, or 0.38 percent, to 9.895 dollars per bushel.

Wheat firmed after private analytics firm Informa Economics lowered its estimate of U.S. winter wheat plantings for harvest in 2017 to 33.761 million acres from 35.421 million, trade sources said.

Informa projected U.S. all-wheat plantings for 2017 at 47.265 million acres, they said, which if realized would be the fewest in U.S. Department of Agriculture records dating to 1919.

Commodity funds hold a large net short position in CBOT wheat, leaving the market vulnerable to bouts of short-covering.

Also, the USDA reported export sales of U.S. wheat in the week to Nov. 10 at 598,400 tonnes, at the high end of trade expectations for 400,000 to 600,000 tonnes.

Corn firmed on strong export demand in spite of a surge in the dollar, which tends to make U.S. grains less attractive to those holding other currencies.

The USDA reported export sales of U.S. corn in the week to Nov. 10 at 1,661,000 tonnes, topping a range of trade expectations for 900,000 to 1.2 million tonnes.

In addition, the USDA said private exporters in the last day sold 106,200 tonnes of corn to unknown destinations for delivery in 2016/17.

Soybeans closed modestly higher following the firm trend in grains. Both corn and soybeans drew support from ideas that farmer selling of both crops is slowing as the U.S. harvest winds down. Endit