Grains: Soy futures creep higher as China buys more US supplies

Bunge Global SA

06/01/2026 17:48

Adds start of U.S. trading

By Tom Polansek

CHICAGO, Jan 6 (Reuters) - Chicago Board of Trade soybean futures inched up on Tuesday as China bought more U.S. supplies.

Corn and wheat futures also rose slightly, as agricultural markets extended gains after rebounding on Monday from recent multi-week lows.

Traders kept a close eye on Chinese demand for U.S. soy after Washington said in late October that Beijing had agreed to buy supplies as part of a truce in the countries' trade war.

 China's state stockpiler Sinograin this week bought 10 U.S. soybean cargoes, totalling around 600,000 metric tons, three traders told Reuters. The U.S. Department of Agriculture later confirmed that exporters sold 336,000 metric tons of U.S. soybeans to China for 2025/2026 delivery.

     China's overall U.S. soybean purchases were approaching 10 million tons since the trade truce, traders said. That represents over 80% of the 12 million metric tons that U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent previously said China pledged to buy by the end of February.

Some traders had feared that Beijing might pause its buying after the U.S. captured the president of Venezuela, a Chinese strategic partner, said Jim Gerlach, president of A/C Trading in Indiana.

"The fact that they bought beans despite this going on is supportive," Gerlach said.

Most-active CBOT soybean futures Sv1 were up 1 cent at $10.63 a bushel by 11:30 a.m. CST (1730 GMT). On Friday, the benchmark contract set its lowest level since October.

CBOT corn Cv1 rose 2 cents to $4.46-1/2 a bushel, while CBOT wheat Wv1 edged up 1/2 cent to $5.13 a bushel. Wheat on Friday reached its lowest point since October, while corn hit a two-week low on Monday before turning higher.

Concerns about the risk for dry weather to hurt corn crops in Argentina helped underpin prices, Gerlach said. Analysts also kept an eye on dryness in U.S. winter wheat belts.

"Pockets of dryness in the U.S. Plains lent support to wheat," said Josh Lawrence, advisory consultant at IKON Commodities. "Still, gains were limited by ample supplies from major exporting countries."

Grain traders were also watching investor flows linked to annual changes in the composition of commodity indexes, and looking ahead to crop data due from the U.S. Department of Agriculture next Monday.

 (Reporting by Tom Polansek in Chicago; Ella Cao, Daphne Zhang and Lewis Jackson in Beijing and Gus Trompiz in Paris; Editing by Rashmi Aich, Harikrishnan Nair, Shailesh Kuber and Andrea Ricci)

 ((Thomas.Polansek@thomsonreuters.com))