Corn, Wheat Prices Higher

Corn and wheat futures prices, boosted by a weakened U.S. dollar and new Soviet corn purchases, were mostly higher Friday on the Chicago Board of Trade.

Corn prices were supported by the Agriculture Department’s announcement after trading Thursday that the Soviet Union had purchased 200,000 metric tons of U.S. corn. At the close, the USDA announced that an additional 500,000 tons of U.S. corn had been sold to the Soviets.

Despite the stronger foreign currencies, soybean prices were mostly lower. A less expensive dollar makes U.S. farm products more desireable to foreign buyers.

“There was no news to justify the sell-off (in soybeans), but traders tend to even up their positions prior to weekend,” said Susan Hackmann, a grains analyst with Pershing Futures.

Richard Loewy, senior grains and oil seed analyst in New York with Prudential-Bache Securities, said soybean prices may have been depressed by news of favorable harvest conditions in the northern part of Brazil, an export rival of the United States.

Live cattle prices were mixed to mostly higher.

Gold and silver prices were slightly higher on New York’s Commodity Exchange.