by Kirk Maltais


--Corn for July delivery rose 3.2% to $6.45 1/2 a bushel, on the Chicago Board of Trade on Thursday, boosted by a potential new sponsor after dropping for six previous days.

--Soybeans for July delivery rose 1.9% to $12.00 a bushel.

--Wheat for July delivery fell 1.2% to $6.39 a bushel.


HIGHLIGHTS


Placed on Hold: CBOT corn and soybeans found support in the new tax package provisionally enacted by the Lula Administration in Brazil, which is expected to raise $29 billion in new revenue annually. The tax scheme is expected to raise farm taxes in Brazil by roughly 20%, and has many Brazilian farmers holding onto their grain instead of selling it into the world export market. "Farmers have stopped selling grain, waiting to see if it gets approved by Congress," Brian Splitt of AgMarket.net said. A prolonged slowdown by Brazil could leave buyers seeking alternative sources like the U.S.

Big Bounce: Corn and soybeans managed to shake off a 7-day losing streak - corn having fallen 5.2% in that time and soybeans sliding 5.7% on a lack of adverse weather to derail the large crops in the ground throughout the Corn Belt. The situation with U.S. weather doesn't appear to have changed, said Brian Hoops of Midwest Market Solutions. "Weather looks great for the Midwest so there is really no fundamental reason for the bounce," he said.

Out of Gas: Wheat futures didn't move with corn and soybeans, leaving them with a seventh straight losing session. Alarm over Russia's diminished wheat production estimates appears to have dwindled, said Joel Karlin of Ocean State Research. "Looks like the market has settled on a Russian wheat crop of 80 million [metric tons] so ambulance chasing is starting to die down," he said, adding that traders are also expecting next week's WASDE report to show higher winter wheat production, with harvests said to be yielding better-than-expected results.


INSIGHT


Mixed Messages: The increasingly-likely return of La Niña later this summer is seen as having a mixed effect on world commodities--with benefits arriving in some places but new problems sprouting elsewhere, said David Oxley of Capital Economics in a note. La Niña appears to loosely correlate with higher prices in sugar and coffee, said the firm, but it's only one of many factors that can influence prices. The climate system may help create a strong hurricane season, possibly derailing late crop progress for the Corn Belt.

Nearly Clear: The latest reading from the U.S. Drought Monitor shows that a large majority of the U.S. Corn Belt has no areas of drought, running counter to the extreme periods of drought impacting crops in the past few years. The Drought Monitor map shows key states like Iowa -- which saw its northeastern region struggle with drought this spring -- Illinois and Minnesota completely drought free. In the Central Plains, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska all have small areas in the state dealing with moderate drought, the least-severe category of drought. Kansas is the one Corn Belt state with varying degrees of drought still, with it mostly concentrated in the center and southwestern portions of the state.


AHEAD


--The CFTC will release its weekly Commitment of Traders report at 3:30 p.m. ET Friday.

--The USDA will release its weekly grains export inspections report at 11 a.m. ET Monday.

--The USDA will release its weekly Crop Progress report at 4 p.m. ET Monday.


Write to Kirk Maltais at kirk.maltais@wsj.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

06-06-24 1526ET