Chicago agricultural commodities futures market closes mixed

Chicago agricultural commodities futures market ended mixed Thursday, with corn dropping while wheat and soybeans rising. The most active corn contract for July delivery dropped 2.25 cents, or 0.44 percent, to close at 5.0725 dollars per bushel. July wheat gained 13.75 cents, or 2.01 percent, to close at 6.965 dollars per bushel. July soybeans also rose 5.25 cents, or 0.36 percent, to close at 14.7 dollars per bushel. U.S. weekly export sales report for the week ending April 17 was disappointing for soybeans, corn and soyoil. U.S. sold 12.5 million bushels of old-crop wheat and 10 million bushels of the new-crop wheat; it also exported 24.4 million bushels of corn and 800 tonnes of old-crop soybean, a marketing year low, plus 4.3 million bushels of the new-crop soybean. China has been much less active in new-crop soybean purchases from the United States amid negative crush margins. Wheat posted a strong growth Thursday as the tensions in Ukraine kept escalating. Canada put its 2014 wheat seeding at 24.8 million acres (about 10 million hectares), down 1.2 million acres from last year. This also lent support to wheat. Canadian soybean seeding estimate surged to a new record high of 5.3 million acres, up 800,000 acres from last year. It is expected to produce 210 million bushels of soybeans this year, and U.S. soybean imports from Canada are likely to be between 30-35 million bushels in 2014-2015 period.