By Kirk Maltais

 

-- Wheat for December delivery rose 3.1% to $7.72 1/2 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade Friday, with traders backtracking from strong selling in recent days.

-- Corn for December delivery rose 1.2% to $6.23 1/4 a bushel.

-- Soybeans for November delivery rose 0.1% to $14.06 1/4 a bushel.

 

HIGHLIGHTS

 

Bargain Hunting: Wheat futures are retracing ground ceded in trading Thursday when the contract shed 4.2%. Fund traders saw this session as a prime opportunity to pick up wheat positions at an attractive price.

"Fund managers are covering fresh shorts in wheat, but new export demand is lacking," said AgResource in a note. The firm estimates that through midday, funds purchased roughly 5,700 contracts of wheat.

 

Flagging Enthusiasm: Soybeans spent much of the trading session lower, with fresh news lacking.

No new flash export sales were reported by the USDA, and meanwhile soybean-growing areas such as Iowa received some rainfall, which is expected to bolster the health of the U.S. crop.

"Overnight we had showers over northern and eastern Iowa, and rains spread over much of the state during the day, which should have further shrunk the dry areas," said Charlie Sernatinger of ED&F Man Capital in a note.

 

INSIGHTS

 

Looking Ahead: Grain traders spent Friday shifting their attention toward next week's Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour, in hopes of fresh news being injected into the market.

"Next week could be exciting with the crop images on twitter and the subsequent yield estimate speculation in the ag community," said Craig Turner of Daniels Trading in a note. "Based on the conversations I have with farmers in the Midwest, I would not be surprised if the production is better overall than what many of the bulls believe."

The eastern and western legs of the tour are scheduled to begin Monday, with the tour concluding in Rochester, Minn., on Thursday.

 

A Month In: It has now been a month since the Ukrainian grain export corridor deal was reached, and while many observers have questioned the feasibility of such a deal amid ongoing conflict, the deal appears to have yielded tangible results.

"A month on from the signing of the Ukraine-Russia agreement and there are clear signs that export pace has picked up for the key Ukraine ports," said Tim Worledge of Fastmarkets. "Fastmarkets monitoring of lineup and shipping intelligence suggests that the ships trapped in port at the beginning of the conflict have now largely been able to move."

The firm adds that while the ships moving to and from ports so far have been smaller in size. Panamax vessels that can carry as much as 80,000 metric tons of cargo have started to arrive at Ukrainian ports.

 

Staying Strong: Deere & Co. says that it is seeing strong demand for its equipment heading into 2023.

"Looking ahead, we believe favorable conditions will continue into 2023 based on the strong response we have experienced to early-order programs, " says John May, the company's chief executive, in its third-quarter earnings report. "We are working closely with our factories and suppliers to meet higher levels of customer demand next year."

 

AHEAD

 

-- The USDA is scheduled to release its weekly grains export inspections report at 11 a.m. EDT Monday.

-- The USDA is due to release its monthly Cold Storage Report at 3 p.m. EDT Monday.

-- The USDA is scheduled to release its weekly crop progress report at 4 p.m. EDT Monday.

 

Write to Kirk Maltais at kirk.maltais@wsj.com

 

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 19, 2022 15:16 ET (19:16 GMT)

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