CHICAGO, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) agricultural futures closed lower in the trading week which ended Dec. 14, with soybeans falling double digits despite new purchases from China.
The most active contract for January 2019 soybeans were down 16.25 U.S. cents weekly, or 1.77 percent, to 9.005 dollars per bushel. March wheat fell 1.25 cents, or 0.24 percent, to 5.30 dollars per bushel. March corn edged down 0.75 cent, or 0.19 percent, to 3.8475 dollars per bushel.
Since China and the United States agreed on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Argentina to take measures to ease bilateral trade tensions, Chicago soybean futures marked new rally highs on rumors of large sales to China, the top soybean buyer.
However, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) confirmed on Thursday soybean sales of 1,130,000 metric tons for delivery to China during the 2018/2019 marketing year, and 300,000 metric tons more to the same destination on Friday, the oil seed futures reversed the upturn and posted sharp losses instead.
Market watchers said some traders chose to pocket the profits with "buy the rumor/sell the fact" mentality, while some others argued that they need to see a minimum 7 million metric tons of new Chinese orders to offset the lower export pace so far.
After Chinese importers turned to Brazil for soybean supply amid bilateral trade disputes, U.S. soybean export sales now reportedly reached only 48 percent of USDA's goal, far under the 75 percent five-year average.
CBOT wheat also saw a choppy week with rising world demand and prices, then a plunge on profit-taking.
Egypt's state grain importer GASC recently secured 180,000 metric tons of Romanian and Russian wheat for early February arrival. GASC paid an average price of 242 dollars per metric ton, compared to 237 dollars for a tender last week.
Egypt, the world's largest wheat buyer, also purchased 120,000 metric tons from U.S. suppliers.
The bullish news drove up European and U.S. wheat prices for two consecutive days, but profit-taking pared all the previous gains and the grain futures ended the week on a negative note.
Still, U.S. export sales of wheat have risen to levels that are above the pace needed to meet the USDA's annual forecast, said analysts with the Chicago-based agricultural research firm AgResource.
It was a quiet week for CBOT corn futures, which settled little changed.
