CHICAGO, Feb 6 (Reuters) - U.S. corn and soybean futures weakened on Monday on a technical setback after rallying to the high end of recent trading ranges last week, traders said.
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 were mixed, with the most-active Chicago Board of Trade soft red winter wheat contracts easing on good conditions for crop development in the U.S. Midwest. But K.C. hard red winter wheat futures were firm, supported by dry soils in the U.S. Plains.
At 11:10 a.m. CST (1710 GMT), CBOT March soybean futures were down 10-1/2 cents at $15.21-1/2 a bushel. March corn futures were off 3-1/2 cents at $6.74 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 1-1/4 cents at $7.55-1/2 a bushel and K.C. hard red winter wheat for March delivery was up 7 cents at $8.80 a bushel. (Reporting by Mark Weinraub in Chicago Additional reporting by Michael Hogan in Hamburg and Matthew Chye in Singapore, Editing by Barbara Lewis and Matthew Lewis)
