CANBERRA, Feb 28 (Reuters) - Chicago soybean futures rose on Wednesday but remained near their lowest levels since November 2020, as cheap South American supply made U.S. beans less competitive in export markets.
Corn futures were flat, with plentiful supply holding prices near their lowest since 2020, and wheat fell as bumper Russian production continued to loom over the market.
FUNDAMENTALS
* The most-active soybean contract on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) was up 0.3% at $11.44-1/4 a bushel by 0137 GMT after dropping as low as $11.34 on Monday.
* CBOT corn was unchanged at $4.23-1/2 a bushel, having last slid to $4.04.
* Wheat dipped 0.7% to $5.80-1/4 a bushel and was not far from September's three-year low of $5.40.
* Speculative investors have amassed large net short positions in all three crops, pushing prices lower but leaving them vulnerable to bouts of short-covering.
* "Brazilian soybeans continue to be roughly $2 per bushel cheaper than U.S. Gulf soybeans shipped into China," said StoneX analyst Arlan Suderman.
* "Production estimates for Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina continue to slowly decline, but there's still little evidence that they will fall enough to justify rationing U.S. demand with higher prices," he said.
* The market largely shrugged off confirmation by the U.S. Department of Agriculture that U.S. exporters sold 123,000 metric tons of soybeans to unknown destinations.
* Commodity funds were net sellers of Chicago soybeans on Tuesday but net buyers of wheat and corn, traders said.
* CBOT prices have been helped by a decline in the dollar from a three-month high in mid-March. A weaker dollar makes U.S. farm products more affordable for foreign buyers.
* Chinese importers are believed to have purchased a substantial volume of animal feed corn from Ukraine in the past week, European traders said.
* Soft wheat exports from the European Union since the start of the 2023/24 season in July reached 20.5 million metric tons by Feb. 22, down from 21.1 million in the same period a year earlier, EU data showed.
* Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said he could not rule out widening a national ban on imports of Ukrainian grains to other products if the European Union does not act to protect the bloc's markets.
* The European Parliament approved a flagship law to restore nature on Tuesday, salvaging at least part of EU plans to protect the environment after farmers' protests ignited a backlash.
MARKETS NEWS
* A global equities index advanced slightly on Tuesday, as investors weighed the outlook for central bank rate cuts after the latest batch of economic data and ahead of a key U.S. inflation reading due Thursday. (Reporting by Peter Hobson; Editing by Rashmi Aich)
