Corn, wheat and soybean futures all closed lower in overnight trade. A night of mainly technical trade saw corn say within support levels as it failed to breach the 20 day moving average. It appears those who needed to clear CBOT March futures contracts have done so. Weekly US corn export sales were also a little lower than expected. Corn futures closed out the session a few cents lower.
Soybeans were the big loser last night taking back yesterday’s gains. Profit taking was blamed for much of the drop but increases in the projected Brazilian bean crop didn’t help. Private estimates of 108mt, some 4mt higher than current USDA estimates.
Wheat at Chicago was dragged higher by the row crops earlier in the week and last night it was dragged lower. After testing resistance levels wheat stumbled and closed lower on all three US exchanges. Weekly US exports were poor and missed the market estimates according to most analyst. Talk of a big Argentine crop displacing US wheat into Brazil didn’t support values either.

Talk of India reinstating their 25% wheat import tariff has not done wheat any favours either. We are dealing with India here though so anything is likely to happen. If wheat production there is as low as some say it is India may well find themselves doing a back flip on the tariff again later in the year as local stocks there dwindle.