U.S. soybeans rally, corn flat, wheat falls

CHICAGO, Jan 20 (Reuters) - Chicago Board of Trade soybean futures surged on Thursday as a combination of rising export hopes, concerns about the South American crop and technical buying pushed prices to a seven-month high, traders said.

Corn futures ended close to unchanged after fluctuating between positive and negative territory throughout the session, while wheat futures eased after rallying sharply in the past two days.

The most-active soybean contract settled up 2.5% after gaining 2.2% on Wednesday.

"There are some rumors flying around that China is buying some cargoes of U.S. beans," said Darin Fessler, senior hedge advisor at Lakefront Futures & Options. "You also took out some resistance levels from last week."

Strength in the cash market added support.

"The combination of good crush demand with strong demand for U.S. soybeans at the Gulf (of Mexico) has the two demand components competing for cash soybeans," Tomm Pfitzenmaier, analyst for Summit Commodity Brokerage in Iowa, said in a note.

The CBOT March soybean futures contract rose 34-1/2 cents to close at $14.25-3/4. On a continuous basis, the most-active contract hit its highest price since June 17.

Analysts were expecting a U.S. Agriculture Department report on Friday to show that weekly export sales of soybeans were in a range of 700,000 to 1.5 million tonnes. That compares with 918,598 tonnes a week ago.

China's soybean imports in December from the United States almost doubled compared with November, customs data showed.

CBOT March corn ended 1/2 cent higher at $6.11 a bushel while CBOT March soft red winter wheat was down 6-1/4 cents at $7.90-1/4 a bushel.

Traders noted that profit-taking pulled corn from its highs after it failed to take out the three-week peak it hit on Wednesday. But concerns about hot weather limiting the size of the South American harvest provided support when prices dipped into negative territory. (Additional reporting by Gus Trompiz in Paris and Naveen Thukral in Singapore; Editing by David Evans, Paul Simao and Grant McCool)