By Kirk Maltais


--Wheat for March delivery fell 1.1% to $7.34 1/2 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade on Thursday as profit-taking by fund traders that started Wednesday continued into today's session.

--Soybeans for March delivery fell 0.6% to $15.14 3/4 a bushel.

--Corn for March delivery fell 0.6% to $6.77 1/4 a bushel.


HIGHLIGHTS


Locking in Gains: Wheat futures took the brunt of profit-taking pressure again today, due to concerns about U.S. export prices. "Wheat prices remain penalized by last week's USDA report and by a lack of competitiveness of U.S. origins," said AgriTel in a note.

Diminishing Returns: The lift that dry conditions in Argentina's growing areas has provided U.S. grain futures appears to have worn off - with rainfall arriving there at the right time for freshly planted crops. "The concerns about the Argentine drought have diminished and their late planted soybeans could benefit greatly from an improvement in the weather," said Tomm Pfitzenmaier of Summit Commodity Brokerage in a note. Benefits are also being seen for corn planted there, Mr. Pftizenmaier notes.


INSIGHT


Losing Steam: Russian wheat exports have been a source of pressure for U.S. wheat futures, with the most-active contract down over 6% since the start of the year. However, Russian wheat exports in January are expected to fall back from levels seen in the previous month, said SovEcon in a note. The firm says that higher taxes on wheat exports are slowing Russia's export pace, with 1.9 million tons of wheat having been exported from Russian ports through January 19. "Smaller exports in January may lower the pressure of Russian wheat on the global grain market," said the firm.

Back Onboard: Daily production of U.S. ethanol climbed above the threshold of 1 million barrels a day for the first time in four weeks. In its latest report, the EIA said daily ethanol production averaged 1.008 million barrels a day for the week ended Jan. 13. That's up from 943,000 barrels a day averaged in the previous week, and above the forecasts from analysts surveyed by Dow Jones this week. They forecast production to land anywhere between 920,000 barrels a day and 993,000 barrels a day. Meanwhile, ethanol inventories fell back for the second straight week, dropping to 23.4 million barrels from 23.8 million barrels reported last week.

Not Optimistic: Grain traders saw last week's export sales figures reported by the USDA as low - and some think sales might give a repeat performance this week. Grain traders surveyed by The Wall Street Journal forecast that new wheat export sales could be as low as 75,000 metric tons across the 2022/23 and 2023/24 marketing years, which would be down from last week's 92,300 tons. Corn sales are seen being as low as 275,000 tons and soybean sales at 570,000 tons - both of which would be lower than their showing last week.


AHEAD


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

-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

01-19-23 1526ET