Rain Boosts Corn, Soybeans

Showers sweeping into the Midwest were expected to delay harvesting and helped support corn and soybean futures prices Friday while wheat was mostly lower in trading on the Chicago Board of Trade. Profit taking limited gains, however, and kept prices down in the wheat pit, where sharp gains were made on Thursday, analysts said.

The rain moved into the Corn Belt on Friday and was expected to continue through the weekend. Traders anticipated the showers would be “just enough to keep the Midwest too wet to do much harvesting,” said Susan Hackmann, a grains analyst for Agri Analysis.

Wheat’s rally on Thursday--sparked by expectations that demand for United States wheat could pick up with the closure of the St. Lawrence Seaway--spilled over into early trading Friday. But as the day wore on, traders began selling and evening their positions before the weekend, Hackmann said.

Frozen pork belly futures prices advanced, cattle prices were mostly higher and hogs were mixed in trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

Petroleum futures prices were mostly lower in featureless trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.