CHICAGO, Feb 28 (Reuters) - U.S. soybean, corn and wheat futures fell on Tuesday on a round of end-of-month liquidation by investment funds, traders said.
Soybeans notched the biggest declines, with the most-active contract falling 1.8% and on track for its biggest daily decline since Jan. 3.
Traders said that soybeans were the most vulnerable to a sell-off as wheat and corn have already fallen sharply since the start of 2023, while the soybean market had to catch up.
"The liquidation has started and the beans are playing catch up with the feed grains," said Mike Zuzolo, president of Global Commodities Analytics.
Additionally, soybeans faced fundamental pressure as recently harvested supplies from top producer Brazil became available on the global marketplace.
At 10:44 a.m. CST (1644 GMT), CBOT May soybean futures were down 27 cents at $14.85-3/4 a bushel. For the month, soybeans have shed 3.4%, on track for their first monthly decline since September.
CBOT May corn futures were off 6-1/4 cents at $6.37-1/4 a bushel. Corn futures have fallen 6.3% during February, which would be their biggest monthly decline since June.
CBOT May soft red winter wheat was down 1/4 cent at $7.09-3/4 a bushel and on track for a monthly drop of 6.8%, its fifth straight monthly drop.
Rain in parts of the U.S. winter wheat belt and optimism over a Russia-Ukraine export deal kept the wheat market under pressure.
"The weakness is probably due to the good supply situation, thanks in part to a sharp rise in Russian exports," Commerzbank said about the market move over the past two weeks.
Turkey's state grain board TMO has provisionally purchased an estimated 790,000 tonnes of wheat in an international tender. Traders said Russian wheat was among the purchases along with some Ukrainian and a range of other origins, especially from other Black Sea countries. (Additional reporting by Naveen Thukral in Singapore and Sybille de La Hamaide in Paris; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips, Subhranshu Sahu, Mark Porter and Tomasz Janowski)
