CHICAGO, Feb 6 (Reuters) - U.S. soybean futures dropped on Monday on a technical setback after rallying to the high end of recent trading ranges last week, traders said.
Corn ended higher after trading in negative territory for much of the day, with the market finding support near Friday's low.
Investors were waiting for news about the size of the crops in South America before pushing futures prices too far in either positive or negative directions.
"On the technical side, you just run the market up and corn gets up near $6.85 and beans get up near $15.40 and that turns it back and that's where we sit," said Mark Schultz, chief market analyst at Northstar Commodity.
Wheat futures dropped, with forecasts for rain in both the U.S. Midwest, the principal growing area for soft red winter wheat, and the U.S. Plains, where the bulk of the hard red winter wheat crop is grown, weighing on prices.
CBOT March soybean futures ended down 10-3/4 cents at $15.21-1/4 a bushel. March corn futures were up 1-1/2 cents at $6.79 a bushel.
Soybeans and corn faced additional pressure from concerns that U.S. export sales to China could be endangered by political tension after the United States shot down a Chinese balloon.
"Political tension is not good for new sales of soybeans or corn to China," said Matt Ammermann, StoneX commodity risk manager. "There is also the fear the Chinese government could order the cancellation of existing Chinese purchases of U.S. soybeans and corn."
The U.S. Agriculture Department said on Monday morning that weekly export inspections of soybeans totaled 1.830 million tonnes and corn export inspections totaled 480,205 tonnes.
CBOT March soft red winter wheat was down 6-1/2 cents at $7.50-1/4 a bushel. (Reporting by Mark Weinraub in Chicago Additional reporting by Michael Hogan in Hamburg and Matthew Chye in Singapore, Editing by Barbara Lewis, Matthew Lewis and Sandra Maler)
