Argentina dry shift trims soy’s biggest gain since 2014

Bloomberg

A change to drier weather in Argentina is paring the biggest monthly gain for soybeans since 2014 after floods damaged the country’s crops.
Dry weather will prevail in Argentina, the world’s third-largest exporter of soybeans, through early next week, allowing harvesting to accelerate, MDA Weather Services said in a report on Saturday. The harvest is 24 percent complete, according to the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange, and floods in the nation mean global production will be 5 million metric tons less than forecast, data from the International Grains Council showed.
“A dry weather pattern is expected to take place over the next week,” Tobin Gorey, a strategist at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, said in a report e-mailed on Friday. That “should at least help to get harvest progress back on track,” he said.
Soybeans for July delivery slid 0.8 percent to $10.19 a bushel on the Chicago Board of trade in London. Prices are still up 12 percent this month, the most since October 2014. Soybean meal for the same month dropped 1.2 percent to $329.30 per 2,000 pounds.
Global soybean production will fall to 318 million metric tons in 2015-16, 5 million tons less than a previous estimate and about 0.6 percent lower than the record a year earlier, the London-based IGC said in a report on Friday. Before the floods in Argentina, the IGC had expected this season’s global crop to hit a new all-time high. Researcher Oil World has also cut its outlook for South American production by 5 million tons.
In other markets:
Corn for July declined 0.5 percent to $3.8925 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade. Wheat for July slid 0.8 percent to $4.8175 a bushel in Chicago. The Paris contract for December retreated 1 percent to €169.75 a ton.