Soybeans slip as ample supply outweighs hopes for China purchases

Chicago soybean futures ceded some ground on Thursday, after the previous session’s 1.1% rise, when U.S. President Donald Trump said he would talk with Chinese President Xi Jinping about China’s boycott of U.S. beans. Wheat futures slipped, while corn inched higher. Prices of all three grains were near multi-week lows due to plentiful global supply. U.S. farmers have lost out on billions of dollars of sales to China, which is the biggest soy importer but hasn’t yet bought beans from the autumn U.S. harvest amid a trade war with Washington. Trump said in a social media post on Wednesday that soybeans would be a major topic of discussion when he meets Xi in four weeks. The post spurred some buying but ample supply and China’s continued absence from the U.S. market will likely erase the gains, said Andrew Whitelaw, an analyst at consultants Episode 3 in Australia. “Nothing has changed other than the promise of soybeans being on the agenda,” he said. The most-active soybean contract ...