Chicago grains climb amid lower stock expectation

Chicago grains were well supported by the expectation that a lower ending stock for U.S. grains would be announced in Wednesday's report. Besides, a weaker U.S. dollar added to the positive tone. The most active corn contract for December delivery closed at 6. 605 U.S. dollars per bushel, down 7.25 U.S cents, or 1.1 percent. December wheat hiked 18.25 cents, or 2.9 percent, to 6.57 dollars per bushel. January soybean gained 3.25 cents, or 0.27 percent, to 12.05 dollars per bushel. Market analysts said that fund traders and end users were the market's major buyers, as they believed that U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) would cut its estimates for corn and wheat's ending stock in Wednesday's Supply/Demand report and thus, opted to add position before the positive news come out. It is expected that U.S. ending stocks of corn would be lowered by 70-75 million bushels from October's 866 million bushels and the yield is expected to drop about 0.5 bushel per acre from 148.1. Meanwhile, traders also saw a drop in wheat's ending stocks of about 20 million bushels from October's 837 million bushels. Although the U.S. ending stocks for soybeans is expected to be 20-25 million bushels higher than October's estimate, which is negative for the sentiment, the soybeans' sharp drop in the prior trading day has attracted bargain hunters and helped the market to settle higher. Besides, the weakness in dollar gave additional push to the grain market as a whole. The dollar index on Tuesday traded around 76.6, down five percent from the previous trading day.