Wheat Futures Rise on Concerns About Radioactivity in Russia
November 21 2017 - 3:51PM
Dow Jones News
By Benjamin Parkin
Wheat futures rose on Tuesday over concerns about radioactive
contamination in Russia, analysts said.
Russian weather officials6 confirmed a sharp increase in
radioactivity in the Ural Mountains, said AgResource Co. in a note
to clients, following prior warnings from French officials.
Analysts said the source of the contamination was unclear, though
they didn't expect a major threat to crops.
Russia, the world's largest wheat exporter, is fresh from
producing a bumper harvest that has helped depress global prices
and prompted speculative traders to bet that futures will trend
lower. The possibility of a threat to that supply was enough to
spark caution among traders on Tuesday.
Radioactivity levels were "not seen to be high enough to create
human or environmental risks, but traders holding large short
positions are reducing their risk exposure a bit," said Arlan
Suderman, chief commodities economist at INTL FCStone Inc.
Wheat futures for December rose 0.7% to $4.24 3/4 a bushel at
the Chicago Board of Trade on Tuesday, though they didn't reclaim
all of Monday's losses. Prices have stayed within a narrow range of
less than 20 cents through November.
A lower dollar also supported wheat prices, giving U.S.
exporters a boost by making their crop more affordable relative to
cheap Russian grain. The WSJ Dollar Index, which measures the
greenback against a basket of global currencies, fell 0.2% to
87.22.
Corn and soybean markets, meanwhile, were steady to lower. CBOT
December corn futures closed unchanged at $3.45 a bushel while
January oilseed contracts fell 0.1% to $9.89 a bushel.
Weather influences were mixed. Rain in Brazil is ensuring crops
in that country, another major exporter, get a healthy supply of
moisture.
Concerns about Argentine conditions lingered, however. The
Commodity Weather Group said rain this week wouldn't be enough to
relieve all of the country's growing regions, with around a third
of corn and soybean crops drying out over the next two weeks.
Write to Benjamin Parkin at benjamin.parkin@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 21, 2017 15:36 ET (20:36 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.