CANBERRA, Dec 8 (Reuters) - Chicago wheat futures fell on Friday but the market was still on track to end the week up more than 6%, its biggest weekly gain since June, after the largest U.S. sales to China in years caused a flurry of short-covering.
Soybeans were flat and headed for a fifth consecutive weekly loss, as rains in South America boosted the supply outlook. Corn dipped but eked out a small weekly gain.
FUNDAMENTALS
* The most-active wheat contract on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) was down 0.5% at $6.39.1/4 a bushel by 0147 GMT but up 6.1% for the week.
* Prices reached $6.50 on Wednesday, the highest since Aug. 9 and have increased 14% in eight consecutive daily gains since market open on Nov. 28.
* CBOT soybeans were roughly unchanged at $13.11-1/2 a bushel and down 1% for the week. Corn fell 0.3% to $4.86-3/4 a bushel but was up 0.5% from last Friday's close.
* The U.S. government reported private sales of more than 1 million metric tons of U.S. wheat this week, the biggest one-week total to the Asian country since July 2014.
* Commodity funds who had built up a huge short position in CBOT wheat were net buyers again on Thursday, traders said, helping push up prices.
* Before the rally, CBOT wheat traded near three-year lows as Russia, whose harvest is now almost complete, flooded the market with cheap grain.
* Romania's transport minister said the country's plans to boost the monthly transit capacity for Ukrainian grain through its Black Sea port of Constanta to 4 million metric tons is edging closer.
* Port infrastructure in Ukraine, a major grains producer, has been bombed and blockaded by Russia in recent months, with another attack reported on Thursday.
* In other crops, Brazil's Conab cut its forecast for the country's 2023/24 soybean output by a little over 2 million tons but still predicted a record harvest of 160.177 million tons.
* The crop agency also cut its corn production forecast by around half a million tons to 118.528 million tons.
* Recent rains in Brazil and Argentina, both key exporters of soybeans and corn, have helped crops after a dry and hot period that hit yields.
* In the United States, another big producer, farmers are likely to plant more soybeans in 2024 and many plan to cut back on corn acreage with futures prices for that grain hovering around three-year lows.
* Also supporting soybeans was U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmation of private sales of 121,000 tons of U.S. soybeans for shipment to unknown destinations in the 2023/24 marketing year.
* China imported 7.92 million tons of soybeans in November, customs data showed on Thursday, up 7.8% from a year earlier but lower than traders' expectations.
MARKETS NEWS
The yen jumped on Thursday as Bank of Japan policymakers hinted they may shift away from ultra-low interest rates, and a gauge of global stocks rose after three straight falls as investors assessed the latest round of U.S. labour market data.
(Reporting by Peter Hobson; Editing by Rashmi Aich)
