GRAINS-US corn futures touch highest price since June on export demand
By Tom Polansek
CHICAGO, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Chicago Board of Trade corn futures jumped to their highest level since early June on Friday on U.S. export demand, while soybean futures also rose.
In a daily reporting system, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that exporters sold 273,988 metric tons of U.S. corn to unknown buyers for 2025-26 delivery. The agency also said exporters sold 312,000 tons of U.S. soybeans to China for 2025-26 delivery.
The USDA earlier reported that U.S. corn export sales were 2.8 million tons for 2025-26 and 571,500 metric tons for 2026-27 in the week that ended October 16. The agency was catching up on releasing data after halting export sales reports during the federal government's record-long shutdown.
Analysts had expected sales of 1.4 million to 2.5 million tons for 2025-26 and 500,000 to 1 million tons for 2026-27 in the week that ended on October 16, according to a Reuters poll.
"It's old data. However, it did reveal some very impressive corn sales during the week," said Arlan Suderman, chief commodities economist for StoneX.
Analysts projected that USDA on Monday would report weekly corn export sales of 1.1 million to 2.5 million tons for the week that ended on October 23.
CHINESE SOY DEMAND WATCHED
Most-active CBOT corn futures Cv1 were up 1 cent to $4.46-1/4 per bushel at 10:20 a.m. CST (1620 GMT) after rising earlier to $4.48-1/2, the highest since June 2.
Soybean futures Sv1 were up 2 cents at $11.35-1/2 per bushel, and wheat futures Wv1 slipped 2 cents to $5.38-1/2 per bushel.
Trading will end early on Friday, at 12:05 p.m. CST (1805 GMT).
Traders have been closely monitoring China's demand for U.S. soy after the nations struck a trade truce in late October. China had shunned U.S. soy prior to the agreement due to its trade dispute with Washington and shifted its buying to South America.
The Brazilian agriculture ministry has been notified by Chinese authorities that five Brazilian soy exporters were banned from shipping the grain to the Asian country, it said on Thursday.
"The market continues to watch what the Chinese do in their buying of not only U.S. beans, but what they do now with Brazilian beans and their halted purchasing from select plants," CHS Hedging said.
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