Soybeans slip on firm dollar, Chinese demand hopes curb losses

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SINGAPORE — Chicago soybeans slid on Monday with a firm dollar weighing on prices, although China’s decision to ease some COVID-19 restrictions lifted expectations of higher demand in the world’s top importer of the oilseed.

Wheat fell after closing higher on Friday on uncertainty over supplies from the Black Sea region, while corn prices ticked lower.

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“The market received some hopeful demand news with the announcement that China was relaxing some if its COVID restrictions,” Hightower said in a report.

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The most-active soybean contract on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) lost 0.4% to $14.44 a bushel, as of 0332 GMT. Wheat gave up 0.5% to $8.09-3/4 a bushel and corn fell 0.4% to $6.55-1/2 a bushel.

China on Friday shortened quarantine by two days for close contacts of infected people and for inbound travelers, and removed a penalty for airlines for bringing in too many cases. The loosening of curbs cheered markets even as experts cautioned that reopening probably remained a long way off.

The U.S. dollar held firm on Monday following last week’s bruising dive, as Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said that the central bank was not softening its fight against inflation.

A stronger dollar makes the greenback-priced commodities expensive for importer holding other currencies.

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Wheat was supported by continued uncertainty about grain exports from Ukraine because of Russia’s invasion.

Senior United Nations officials met with a Russian delegation in Geneva on Friday to discuss Moscow’s grievances about the Black Sea grains export initiative and address the need for unimpeded food and fertilizer exports, a U.N. spokesperson said.

The negotiations come eight days before the deal brokered by the U.N. and Turkey in July is due to be renewed. The accord has helped stave off a global food crisis by allowing the export of food and fertilizers from several of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports.

Argentina’s wheat exports this season will not quite reach half of last season’s shipments, the Rosario Grains Exchange said on Friday, with only 7 million tonnes of exports expected after months of dry weather halved the 2022/2023 harvest.

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Food imports costs across the world are on course to hit a near $2 trillion record in 2022, piling pressure on the globe’s poorest countries who likely shipped in considerably less volumes of food, the U.N. Food Agency said on Friday.

World food prices soared to record levels in March after Russia invaded Ukraine, a key grains and oilseeds producer, and while they have since retreated somewhat, they remain above last year’s lofty levels.

Commodity funds were net buyers of CBOT corn, soybean, wheat, soymeal and soyoil futures contracts on Friday, traders said. (Reporting by Naveen Thukral; Editing by Rashmi Aich)