By Kirk Maltais


--Wheat for September delivery rose 4.6%, to $8.12 3/4 a bushel, on the Chicago Board of Trade on Monday, with grain traders reacting to a weaker U.S. dollar by buying back into futures.

--Soybeans for November delivery rose 2.8%, to $13.80 1/4 a bushel.

--Corn for December delivery rose 1.2%, to $6.10 3/4 a bushel.


HIGHLIGHTS


Competitive Edge: Wheat futures led the CBOT higher in trading today, with a weaker U.S. dollar making U.S. wheat appear more competitive on the global export market. This sentiment comes as Egypt is back on the market looking for wheat, launching a tender that actually excludes wheat from the European Union and the Black Sea--the country's usual import destinations. "The trade is eyeing the GASC tender early this week and thinking the U.S. has a chance for a slice of that pie for the first time in a long time," said Matt Zeller of StoneX. The GASC, Egypt's state buyer of grain exports, is set to make its decision by tomorrow afternoon.

Cranking the Heat: Across the board, traders expect hot weather to have an effect on crop conditions. "Although we look for crop conditions to improve for corn and spring wheat from good rains that fell through Sunday across their respected growing areas, hot and drier conditions slated for the next seven days may support futures this week, especially after the steep declines in grain futures last week," said Terry Reilly of Futures International.

Turning the Corner: Steep selling seen recently in CBOT grain futures appears linked to fund traders exiting from their long positions in grains, and that seems to have found a temporary stopping place. The CFTC's Commitments of Traders report Friday showed a sharp drop in long positions held in grains by fund traders through July 12, and traders today seem to be turning the corner. "We should pretty well have cleaned out quite a few longs positions and have indicators very oversold," Dan Hueber of the Hueber Report told The Wall Street Journal. "We were due for a rebound."


INSIGHTS


Kept Lean: U.S. export inspections of wheat have been slashed this week, dropping by nearly 50% from the previous week and falling to only a fraction of shipments at this time last year. In its latest weekly grain export inspections report, the USDA said that wheat inspections totaled 185,989 metric tons for the week ended July 14. That is down from 310,002 tons reported last week, and is also well down from 532,898 tons reported at this time last year. Corn and soybean inspections are up for the week, however. Corn inspections totaled 1.07 million tons for the week, while soybean inspections totaled 362,622 tons.

Favorable Ruling: The U.S. International Trade Commission has determined that urea ammonium nitrate solutions imported from Russia and Trinidad and Tobago do not injure the U.S. fertilizer industry, thus declining to institute tariffs on fertilizer sourced from these regions. The decision comes in response to CF Industries filing a petition with the ITC in late 2021, requesting tariffs on urea ammonium nitrate, which is used in liquid fertilizers. "This comes as a welcome relief," said Chris Edgington, head of the National Corn Growers Association. "We have been sounding the alarms... that tariffs will drive up input prices to even more unaffordable levels for farmers and cripple our supply." Fertilizer prices have soared to record highs since last year, due to widespread supply-chain issues.


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 livestock slaughter report at 3 p.m. ET Thursday.


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


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

07-18-22 1455ET