Soybeans climb on supply risks, short-covering; corn, wheat also up

(Updates prices, adds quotes, changes byline, changes dateline from previous HAMBURG)
By Julie Ingwersen
CHICAGO, Sept 23 (Reuters) –
Chicago Board of Trade soybean futures hit nearly a seven-week high on Monday as uncertainty about Brazilian planting weather and the size of the U.S. harvest sparked a round of fund-driven short-covering, analysts said.
U.S. corn and wheat futures followed the firmer trend, with the benchmark contract in each market rising almost 3%. Higher Russian cash wheat prices lent support.
As of 1:09 p.m. CDT (1809 GMT), CBOT November soybean futures were up 26 cents at $10.38 a bushel after climbing to $10.41-3/4, the contract’s highest price since Aug. 6. CBOT December corn was up 11 cents at $4.12-3/4 a bushel and December wheat was up 15-1/4 cents at $5.83-3/4 a bushel.
Soybeans rose on worries about crop weather in Brazil, the world’s top supplier, as well as the U.S., the second-largest exporter. Commodity funds hold a sizable
net short position
in CBOT soybean futures, leaving the market open to short-covering rallies.
With the U.S. harvest under way, market players are waiting for more harvested yield data to determine whether a hot and dry finish to the Midwest growing season affected yields. The USDA this month kept its national soybean yield estimate unchanged at a record-high 53.2 bushels per acre.
“There is some suspicion that we could see lower yields – not materially so, but the arrow is pointing down, whereas 30 days ago, the arrow was still pointing up,” said Terry Linn, an analyst with Linn & Associates in Chicago.
Ahead of the USDA’s weekly
crop progress report
due later on Monday, analysts surveyed by Reuters on average expected the government to show the U.S. soybean harvest as 13% complete and the corn harvest as 17% complete.
In Brazil, dry weather is delaying the start of seeding. Soybean
planting
was 0.9% complete by last Thursday, consultancy AgRural said, below last year’s 1.9%.
CBOT wheat futures rose on firmer cash prices and weather risks around the world.
Russian wheat export prices
edged up slightly last week, and analysts anticipate further gains as export volumes have slowed.
European trade association Coceral on Friday cut its estimate of this year’s grain crop in the European Union and Britain to 280.3 million metric tons from the 296 million tons projected in June after poor weather.
“Wheat is seeing support today from poor crop weather in several regions following reports of poor harvests in Europe,” said Matt Ammermann, a commodity risk manager at StoneX. “Parts of the Black Sea region are too dry along with Australia, some of the U.S. Plains and Argentina.” (Reporting by Julie Ingwersen; Additional reporting by Michael Hogan in Hamburg and Naveen Thukral in Singapore; Editing by Paul Simao)