CHICAGO, Dec 5 (Reuters) – U.S. wheat futures fell more than 1 percent to a one-week low on Thursday on slow U.S. export sales of wheat and a larger-than-expected Canadian crop.
Wheat tumbled for the second day in a row, and at 1.4 percent, posted its biggest one-day decline since the end of October.
European wheat futures, which hit a near seven-month high on Wednesday, tracked U.S. prices lower.
Corn fell for the first time in four days as a short-covering bounce from a three-year low petered out, while soybeans also eased.
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All three commodities were pressured by lower-than-expected exports of each as seen in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s weekly export sales report, which was released on Thursday.
Wheat declined despite the potential for some winterkill damage to the U.S. winter wheat crop late this week as bitter cold temperatures and ice threatened to harm some of the crop in the U.S. Plains and in the U.S. southern Midwest.
“There may be some winterkill in the Plains but I don’t think it’s a major problem. A bigger issue will be the ice cover from northeast Texas into the Delta,” said Don Keeney, a meteorologist at MDA Weather Services.
At 9:46 a.m. CST (1546 GMT), Chicago Board of Trade December wheat was down 9-1/4 cents per bushel at $6.38 per bushel, December corn was down 4 at $4.21-1/2, and January soybeans were down 9 at $13.20-1/2.
“The big news in wheat was the (Statistics Canada) production figure (…) and I think this is driving the movement today,” said Brett Cooper, senior manager, markets, at FCStone Australia.
Statistics Canada said on Wednesday that farmers produced a record 37.53 million tonnes of wheat in 2013, up 38 percent from 2012 and well above market expectations.
The estimates dampened a rally in wheat that had been driven by strong export demand at a time of fading competition from Russia and Ukrainian supply, as well as worries over freezing weather forecast this week in the U.S. wheat belt.
In Europe, March milling wheat on the Paris Euronext market was down 1.55 percent at 206.50 euros a tonne as it pulled away from a near seven-month high of 211.25 euros hit on Wednesday.
Corn remains within sight of a three-year low of $4.10 for front-month prices that was hit on Monday as the market faces the arrival of a record U.S. harvest and China’s rejection of some cargoes of U.S. corn.
China confirmed on Wednesday it had rejected the entry of five U.S. shipments tainted with a non-authorized genetically modified strain, and analysts said the move could be a sign of a tougher Chinese line on imports.
