Soybeans advance as steepest loss in month lures importers, corn climbs

SINGAPORE, Apr 13 (Bloomberg): Soybeans gained on speculation the steepest loss in almost a month is luring importers and investors. Wheat and corn also advanced. July-delivery soybeans gained as much as 0.9 per cent to $13.535 a bushel in Chicago before trading at $13.5175 a bushel at 3:52 p.m. Singapore time. The contract lost as much as 3.7 per cent yesterday, the biggest intraday decline since March 15. "We wouldn't be surprised to see a slight reversal of some of those losses," Luke Mathews, a commodity strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, said by phone from Sydney. Yesterday's selloff was triggered more by "risk aversion through the entire financial markets" rather than a change in the fundamental supply-and-demand balance outlook, he said. The Thomson ReutersJefferies CRB Index of 19 raw materials yesterday dropped by the most since March 15 as equities declined amid more earthquakes in Japan and the ongoing radiation leaks from the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant. The Japanese government raised the severity of the nuclear crisis to the highest level, matching the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Stockpiles of soybeans in the U.S., the largest grower and exporter, fell 1.8 per cent from a year earlier to 1.249 billion bushels as of March 1, the lowest for that date since 2003, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said March 31. The nation's farmers will cut area planted to the oilseed by 1 per cent to 76.609 million acres (31 million hectares), the USDA said. Still, increased harvests in South America may shift import demand away from the U.S., putting pressure on Chicago prices, Mathews said. Production from Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia will reach 132.7 million metric tons this year, 2.8 million tons more than previously forecast, Oil World, a Hamburg-based researcher, said in a report yesterday. The U.S. will export 42.5 million tons, or 1.1 per cent less than the USDA's estimate, according to the report. "Soybeans have got a few headwinds at the moment," Mathews said. "We have an extremely large South American crop that is in the process of being harvested. The remaining import demand is certainly shifting to South American origin."