By Kirk Maltais


--Wheat for December delivery fell 1.2% to $5.72 a bushel, on the Chicago Board of Trade on Tuesday, with wheat succumbing to lower momentum at the end of the day as sentiments of weak export demand outweighed signs that declines in Russian export prices had paused.

--Corn for December delivery rose 0.2% to $4.78 1/4 a bushel.

--Wheat for December delivery rose 0.5% to $13.89 3/4 a bushel.


HIGHLIGHTS


Late Stage: Wheat futures oscillated between either side of unchanged for most of the day, before dropping to end the session. Indications of tighter Russian export availability provided some support for futures, but eventually the contract gave in to a lack of U.S. export demand, said Charlie Sernatinger of Marex in a note. The USDA reported higher wheat shipments in Monday's weekly grain export inspection report, but remain down 5.6% from this time last year.

Bogged-Down Dollar: CBOT grains were supported this afternoon with a weaker U.S. dollar opening the door for traders to put money into commodities, Arlan Suderman of StoneX said in a note. For grains in particular, this resulted in mostly erasing losses seen earlier in the day. The U.S. dollar dropped in reaction to the October CPI report, which showed that inflation cooled more than expected. The results suggest that the Fed may not need to raise interest rates again.


INSIGHT


Harvest Ending: The U.S. harvest is almost done, but it's slightly behind where it was at this time last year. The USDA said in its weekly Crop Progress report that the U.S. corn harvest is 88% complete, and the soybean harvest is 95% done. While both of these are below the pace set at this time last year, they both remain ahead of the four-year average, which put pressure on CBOT grains for much of the day.

Less Interest: Open interest in commodity markets across the board saw a decline through the week ended Nov. 10, according to the latest data from JPMorgan Global Commodities Research. The firm estimates that open interest across all commodity markets fell by 2%, or $31.7 billion. The leading cause for the dropoff was a 5% slide in open interest in energy markets, with precious metals declining 4.7%. The firm says that easing geopolitical fears stemming from the Israel-Gaza and Russia-Ukraine wars caused traders to pull back from commodities. Base metals and agriculture showed much smaller drops, according to JPMorgan.

Continuing the Trend: Heightened grain export purchasing by has been a growing source of support for soybeans--with the USDA confirming a fresh soybean sale to China and a new corn sale to Mexico yesterday. While no further China confirmations were offered this morning, the agency did confirm that 101,745 metric tons of US corn were sold for delivery to Mexico during the 2023/24 marketing year. The effect that had on corn futures was limited. The USDA's grain exports inspection report showed corn and soybean shipments ahead of where they were last year, while wheat is lower.


AHEAD


--The EIA will release its weekly ethanol production and stocks report at 10:30 a.m. ET Wednesday.

--The USDA will release its weekly export sales report at 8:30 a.m. ET Thursday.

--The USDA will release its monthly Cattle on Feed report at 3 p.m. ET Friday.

--The CFTC will release its weekly Commitment of Traders report at 3:30 p.m. ET Friday.


Write to Kirk Maltais at kirk.maltais@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

11-14-23 1559ET