Grain and Soybeans Futures Fall on Technical Pressure

Grain and soybean futures fell across the board on Wednesday, reversing gains made overnight.

With traders starved of positive news, small overnight rallies that are promptly erased during day trading have become a pattern, said Brian Hoops, president of brokerage Midwest Market Solutions.

Grain and soybean prices were trying "to climb a bit further up and possibly even out from the hole they have been pushed into during the past few weeks," said Dan Hueber, manager of advisory firm the Hueber Report.

But prices failed to find support on poor technical indicators and general pressure on the commodity sector.

Wheat prices led the losses, plunging to multimonth lows. May Chicago wheat futures fell 3% to $4.06 1/4 a bushel, the lowest close since Dec. 29 at the Chicago Board of Trade. Kansas City and Minneapolis contracts also recorded sharp losses.

Analysts said traders piled into bets that wheat prices would fall after futures closed below their 100-day moving average on Wednesday. That sparked a selloff Thursday. Continuing rain in U.S. wheat growing regions didn't help, they said, exacerbating concerns about another bumper harvest that would add to the grain surplus.

U.S. rain also pressured corn prices. Futures found some support last week as wet weather delayed planting for the upcoming crop, but mixed forecasts have eased those concerns.

Charlie Sernatinger, a broker at ED&F Man Capital, said windows of dry weather might provide enough of an opportunity for planting to catch up with, or even exceed, last year's pace.

"That would certainly kick a leg out from the three-legged stool prices are sitting on," he said.

CBOT May corn futures fell 1.1% to $3.57 3/4 a bushel, the lowest close since March 30. CBOT May soybean futures, meanwhile, fell 0.4% to $9.46 3/4 a bushel.

Write to Benjamin Parkin at benjamin.parkin@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 20, 2017 16:02 ET (20:02 GMT)