COMMODITIES : Rain Pours More Cold Water on Soybean Prices

The fifth straight day of rain in the nation’s soybean-growing states sent soybean futures prices plunging the allowable limit again Wednesday on the Chicago Board of Trade.

In other action on the Board of Trade, oat futures fell sharply, wheat was lower and corn was mixed. On other markets, sugar prices plummeted, silver rose while gold fell, livestock and meat were mostly lower and energy futures advanced.

Prices for some soybean contracts and nearly all oat contracts fell their allowable limits as scattered rain fell in parts of Indiana, Illinois and Arkansas--the fifth straight day that showers had touched some part of the parched Midwest. Soybean prices are limited to moves of 45 cents a bushel, and soybeans closed unchanged to 45.5 cents lower, with July contracts at $8.29 a bushel. Oats are limited to 15 cents a bushel except for the July contracts, on which the limits have been removed pending the expiration of those contracts at noon today.

While the National Weather Service called for continued drought-like weather in the grain-growing plains states west of the Mississippi, WeatherData, a private forecasting service in Kansas City, Mo., said more rain and cooler temperatures look likely east of the Mississippi and in the Ohio River Valley.

The precipitation came too late to save much of the corn crop. But for soybeans, “the rains came right at the right exact time and in areas where they needed it,” said Walter Spilka, an analyst in New York with Smith Barney, Harris Upham & Co.

The National Weather Service, which issued its 6-to-10-day forecast after trading ended on Wednesday, said hot and dry weather will likely return to the Grain Belt west of the Mississippi by the middle of next week.

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