SINGAPORE, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Chicago soybean futures lost more ground on Thursday, with prices facing pressure from harvest of a record crop in Brazil and expectations of higher interest rates.
Wheat dropped to its lowest in almost one week, while corn ticked down.
FUNDAMENTALS
* The most-active soybean contract on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) fell 0.3% to $15.21 a bushel, as of 0112 GMT. Wheat lost 0.6% to $7.65 a bushel and corn gave up 0.2% to $6.75-1/4 a bushel.
* The Brazilian soybean harvest was 17% complete, agribusiness consultancy AgRural said on Monday, while Scoville noted that progress was more advanced in Mato Grosso, Brazil's biggest soybean state.
* A stronger dollar weighed on greenback-priced commodities.
* The dollar climbed to a six-week peak against a currency basket on Wednesday after the release of hotter-than-expected U.S. retail sales data, bolstering investors' expectations that the Federal Reserve would keep monetary policy tight for some time to fight stubbornly high inflation.
* Farm office FranceAgriMer on Wednesday lowered its outlook for French soft wheat exports this season because of competition from Black Sea supplies, but made a sharp upward revision to its barley export forecast after a wave of shipments to China.
* Uncertainty about risks to Black Sea grain supplies from the war in Ukraine curbed losses in wheat and corn markets.
* Ukraine appealed on Wednesday to the United Nations and Turkey to press Russia to immediately stop hindering Ukrainian grain shipments that supply millions of people and not to use the food as a weapon.
* The U.S. soybean crush rose in January for the first time in three months while soyoil stocks increased for a fourth straight month, although both gains were smaller than expected, according to National Oilseed Processors Association (NOPA) data released on Wednesday.
* NOPA members, which account for around 95% of soybeans processed in the United States, crushed 179.007 million bushels of soybeans last month, up 0.8% from the 177.505 million bushels processed in December but down 1.8% from the January 2022 crush of 182.216 million bushels.
* Commodity funds were net sellers of CBOT wheat, corn, soybean and soymeal futures contracts on Wednesday and net buyers of soyoil futures, traders said.
MARKET NEWS
* Wall Street's three major indexes closed higher on Wednesday and the dollar rose along with U.S. Treasury yields after U.S. retail sales data for January rose by the most in nearly two years, suggesting a resilient economy while fuelling concerns about further interest rate hikes.
DATA/EVENTS (GMT) 1330 US Housing Starts Number Jan 1330 US Initial Jobless Clm Weekly 1330 US Philly Fed Business Indx Feb 1330 US PPI Machine Manuf'ing Jan (Reporting by Naveen Thukral; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)
