Chicago wheat futures jumped on Tuesday as hopes faded for a U.S. diplomatic effort to end the war in Ukraine, which has disrupted Black Sea grain shipments, analysts and traders said.
Corn and soybean futures chopped up and down as traders adjusted positions ahead of Friday's U.S. Department of Agriculture supply and demand report.
The most-traded wheat contract on the Chicago Board of Trade was 4-3/4 cents higher to $7.38-3/4 per bushelas of 11:00 a.m. CT (1600 GMT). It had jumped as high as $7.63 in earlier overnight trade.
CBOT corn fell 2-3/4 cents to $5.34 a bushel, while soybeans rose 2-1/4 cents to $13.12 a bushel.
"Trump envoys went over the weekend and didn't come back with anything concrete," said Jim Gerlach, president of A/C Trading. "Everyone's trading headlines."
U.S. peace envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv over the weekend, but their diplomatic efforts did not appear to secure a breakthrough in ending the war and enable Ukrainian and Russian grain exports to resume at scale, traders said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday the U.S. peace negotiators had presented several "decent ideas" during the talks.
Tit-for-tat attacks by Russia and Ukraine on each other's ports and shipping have brought the countries' Black Sea exports to a near halt, prompting buyers to look for alternatives.
The Black Sea grain export disruptions led Asian wheat importers to buy at least half a million metric tons of Australian and Argentine wheat in recent deals, trade sources said last week.
Ukraine has almost completed its 2026 wheat harvest, producing 24.91 million metric tons of the grain at an average yield of 4.94 tons per hectare, the agriculture ministry said on Tuesday.
Soybeans have been supported by Chinese purchases of U.S. soybeans and concerns over hot, dry weather in key U.S. growing areas.
China's soybean imports totalled 74.11 million metric tons in the January-August period, up 1.1% from 73.33 million tons a year earlier, data from the country's General Administration of Customs showed on Tuesday.
Imports by the world's largest soybean buyer fell 1.1% in August from a year earlier to 12.14 million tons, the data showed.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said last week exporters sold 192,000 tons of soybeans to China for delivery in the 2026/27 marketing year.
Expectations for poor yields in the U.S. Corn Belt have kept a floor on corn futures. Grain markets are also turning their attention towards monthly U.S. Department of Agriculture supply-and-demand forecasts due this Friday.
(Reuters)