Chicago Board of Trade wheat prices rocketed to an all-time top of $9.11-1/4 per bushel in the week ended Sept. 14 as export business remained strong despite record prices. But soybeans, soybean meal and soyoil also hit multi-year highs. 
    The leader was soyoil, which like corn for ethanol has been buoyed in part by the craze for renewable fuels. Soyoil is the feedstock to produce biodiesel.
    Soyoil set a 23-year high of 39.45 cents on Friday, grabbing a bit of the glaring spotlight on wheat that fund investors have been mesmerized with since late summer.
    The oil rally took off on Wednesday after the U.S. Agriculture Department’s monthly supply/demand report. USDA issued shocking drop in projected end-season soyoil stocks.
    Then, on Friday, the threat for a surprise weekend frost in the upper Midwest — potentially freezing late-maturing bean yields or killing off plants — spurred even more worried speculator and commercial buying in soybeans and soyoil.
    But the shocker was the USDA number, which reduced the estimate for end-season U.S. soyoil stockpiles by October 1, 2008 by a whopping 490 million pounds from last month. That was directly tied to projected higher amounts of soyoil sought by the green fuels industry to produce biodiesel.
    Wheat, on the other hand, started acting “toppy.”
    Wheat prices slid more than 70 cents on profit-taking over two days despite bullish USDA data. USDA on Wednesday cut its forecast of world wheat stocks by another 2 percent to a 30-year low and on Thursday reported weekly export sales at 2.13 million tonnes, the biggest in 11 years.
    “When you react that way to what should have been a fairly friendly report — that’s usually a sign,” said Jack Scoville, analyst with The Price Futures Group.
    But Chicago analyst Roy Huckabay said it was too soon to say the high is in because if everyone really believed the market had peaked, the sell-off would be even more severe.
    Analysts noted that, with harvest, we are now moving into the season when U.S. corn and soybean prices slide as supplies move from fields to bins and hedge selling of futures by commercial grain firms taking ownership pressures the markets.
    This should be especially true of corn with farmers due to harvest a record crop of more than 13 billion bushels after plantings rose to the highest level in 63 years.
    Buoyed by wheat and soy, corn futures stayed in their recent range during the week. But a key cash market bellwether — CIF barge corn prices for the New Orleans Gulf export terminal - fell 16-18 cents per bushel between Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. Southern harvest gained momentum and yields remain strong, with many farmers reporting 5 to 15 bushels more per acre than they expected.
    Soybeans — with potential supplies already reduced this season by all the acreage switched to corn for ethanol — are being buoyed at harvest by a little different scenario.
    The futures market continues to try to entice farmers to plant beans — including South American farmers now readying their planters — at a time of record high wheat prices and red-hot demand for corn. The fight for acres is on.
    Over the next week Chicago traders will be watching:
    –Midwest weather reports for potential frost.
    –The latest South American acreage estimates.
    –Whether the parched Australian wheat crop gets rain.
    –Export business buoyed further by the weak dollar.
    –Chart-related signals that could trigger long liquidation in soycomplex futures markets technically overbought after the week’s rally in Chicago.
    
    rtr chi cds