Grains were higher on Wednesday, heading into late trade, if somewhat eclipsed by a bullish thing going on in external markets.

The spark for an investor lovefest for riskier assets was the latest purchasing manager surveys, influential data, showed showed activity in China's manufacturing base picking up last month, and staying strong in India too.

Following better-than-expected US consumer confidence data on Tuesday, a tide of money lifted Frankfurt and London shares by more than 2%, with similar gains on Wall Street as of 17:30 GMT.

Oil did even better, rebounding 3.3% back above $74 a barrel, helped by a greenback which, on relief over the state of the world economy, dipped 0.9%, making dollar-denominated exports that much more competitive to buyers in other currencies.

'Supportive' tender win 

With start-of-the-month fund buying also in town, it was a bullish backdrop for crops, made more so for wheat by some specific news, after US victory in the latest Egyptian wheat tender, following on from a landmark German order on Tuesday.

"Egypt bought 225,000 tonnes of US hard red winter, wheat and that has been very supportive for wheat with continued ideas that the world will continue to turn to the US for wheat," Darrell Holaday, at Country Futures, said.

There were also reports in Ukrainian press that the Black Sea exporter was likely to sow less winter wheat this year because of dry condition although, at a reduction of some 350,000 tonnes year on year, the decline would hardly be disastrous.

This helped make up for some bearish snippets on wheat fundamentals � drought appearing to break in much of Russia, and some rain in dry Western Australia too.

Chicago's September contract was 2.0% higher at $6.65 � a bushel, with the better-traded December lot up 2.0% at $6.99 � a bushel.

'Rationing' talk 

Corn was boosted by continuing talk of disappointing early harvest results � whatever US Department of Agriculture crop condition reports may say.

"The consensus in the market is still that yields corn yields are disappointing," Mr Holaday said.

Benson Quinn Commodities said: "Traders continue to look for dips to buy as yield results remain below expectations."

Rival broker US Commodities also noted the prospect of key estimates from FC Stone and Informa Economics analysts, both of which are expected to cut estimates for the US corn harvest by 0.5-2 bushels per acre.

"If national yields slip under 160-162 bushels per acre, rationing will need to take place," US Commodities said.

"This should push corn values to $4.75-5.00 a bushel on the nearby months."

The September lot was 1.2% higher at $4.29 � a bushel, with its December peer adding 1.1% to $4.44 � a bushel.

Rain relief 

Soybeans, once again, held up the rear, depressed by the a lack of the same yield doubts, but some concern over an apparent fallback in shipments to China, the world's top importer of the oilseed.

"Rains over night through the Midwest will finish the soybean crop off and better yield prospects for that crop is capping its ability to bounce," Benson Quinn said.

Soybeans for September were 0.4% lower at $10.04 � a bushel, with the November crop down the same at $10.06 � a bushel.