Wheat steadies after dropping nearly 3% as Black Sea supply fears ease

CANBERRA, Sept 17 (Reuters) – Chicago wheat futures steadied on Tuesday after an easing of fears over supply from the Black Sea region triggered profit-taking in the previous session that pulled prices from near three-month highs.
Corn and soybean futures edged lower as the United States ramps up what are expected to be bumper harvests, cementing expectations of plentiful supply.
FUNDAMENTALS
* The most-active wheat contract on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) was up 0.3% at $5.80 a bushel, as of 0121 GMT, while CBOT corn edged 0.1% lower to $4.10-1/2 a bushel and soybeans dipped 0.1% to $10.04 a bushel.
* Ample supply drove all three contracts to four-year lows in recent weeks but prices have recovered a little ground.
* Wheat reached $5.99 on Friday, its highest since June 19, driven by crop losses in Europe, a weak U.S. dollar and a missile attack on a grain vessel in the Black Sea that Ukraine blamed on Russia.
* But the absence of further escalation between Kyiv and Moscow and confirmation that large amounts of wheat continue to flow from Russian and Ukrainian ports have tempered concerns.
* Prices fell 2.7% on Monday, but are still around 10% higher than three weeks ago.
* Dry weather persists in parts of the southern regions of Russia and Ukraine, complicating planting of winter wheat.
* But the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) last week raised its estimate for global wheat-ending stocks, limiting price gains, analysts said.
* And Statistics Canada said on Monday that Canadian wheat production would be 4.1% higher in 2024 than in 2023, at 34.3 million metric tons.
* In other crops, the USDA said the U.S. corn harvest was 9% complete by Sunday and the soybean harvest was 6% complete, both 3 percentage points ahead of their five-year averages.
* The USDA rated 65% of the U.S. corn crop as “good-to-excellent”, up 1 percentage point from a week ago and above analysts’ estimates, and 64% of the soybean crop as “good-to-excellent”, down 1 percentage point from last week and matching expectations.
* The condition ratings are the highest for this time of year since 2018, underscoring expectations for large harvests.
* The U.S. soybean crush dropped below all trade estimates in August to the lowest point for a single month in nearly three years, National Oilseed Processors Association data released on Monday showed.
* Commodity funds were net sellers of CBOT wheat futures and net buyers of corn and soybeans, traders said.
MARKETS REPORTS
* Tech stocks dragged on U.S. indexes and the dollar touched a more than one-year low against the yen on Monday as all eyes looked to a Federal Reserve meeting later this week that is expected to usher in a hotly anticipated easing cycle.
(Reporting by Peter Hobson; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)