Bears regained the ascendancy on Wednesday, notably in wheat, which had its worst day in two (volatile) weeks, shedding more than 3% in Chicago.

The decline was widely attributed to America's loss in the latest Egyptian grain tender, which France won by 240,000 tonnes to nil against other exporters. (Australian, Canadian, Argentine and UK wheat was also invited, although only the first two made it onto the short list.)

That said, some considered the result thoroughly expected, and in line, after all, in recent Franco-US clashes in tenders by Egypt, the world's top wheat exporter, which has considerably less shipping costs transporting the grain from a country at the other end of the Mediterranean, rather than across the Atlantic.

"No-one I spoke to expected the US to win," a City analyst told Agrimoney.com, puzzled at any US disappointment.

 (Which might, anyway, have been somewhat assuaged by news through the US Department of Agriculture's daily reporting system of the sale of 109,000 tonnes of hard red winter wheat to unknown destination.)

'On the defensive'

Still, that's not to say investors didn't have reason to sell, with Ukraine raising its estimate for winter wheat sowings by 350,000 hectares to 6.75m hectares, a figure in line with last year.

Then Canada said its wheat stocks at the end of July were 7.8m tonnes, a whopping 1m tonnes higher than analysts had expected, and indicating extra crop to sell.

"This has kept the market on the defensive throughout the day," Darrell Holaday at Country Futures said.

Viterra rubbed the point home by saying the Canadian Wheat Board's estimate of a deep drop in exports was pessimistic.

Bear points 

In Australia, ANZ pegged its crop estimate at 24.1m tonnes, also whopping, if diluting the bearish message by reasoning that logistical difficulties would hamper exports.

And that before the much-noted concerns about the USDA's monthly report on Friday on global crop supply and demand.

Chicago's September wheat lot closed down 3.4% at $6.78 � a bushel, with the better-traded December contract shedding 3.3% to $7.11 a bushel.

Indeed, later contracts were notably more resilient, with the September 2011 lot, for instance, losing 0.9% to $7.26 a bushel in what could be evidence of so-called bear spreading � sell the near-term lot and buy a further away contract, in hope of normal price patterns reappearing.

Harvest results vs ratings

It was a phenomenon absent from corn, whose 0.8% slide pretty much across the board was blamed on wheat's woes. The September lot ended down 4 cents at $4.47 � a bushel, with the December lot down 3.75 cents at $4.62 � a bushel.

However, investors are also, ahead of Friday's USDA report, having to balance out reports of weaker harvest yields with USDA crop ratings which remain pretty good, with 69% of the US crop rated "good" or "excellent".

"The corn harvest as we move into Iowa remains disappointing. This is not what the bears wanted," US Commodities said.

"It is now popular to talk poor yields in corn and just average yields on soybeans.  Crop ratings, however, remain the stumbling blocks."

And those, the broker said in an unusually upfront recommendation "make you think if you should take profits prior to the report".

"Short term the market is overbought and swift profit taking corrections can occur at any time."

More soybean exports

This time, not even soybeans could buck the trend, despite the announcement through daily reporting of a further US sale to China, of 115,000 tonnes.

While the market is expecting Friday's estimates to leave numbers on US soybean production "mostly unchanged", figures on year-end stocks "again are expected to tighten on increased China demand", Benson Quinn Commodities said.

Still, with its Chicago peers in poor sorts, soybeans lost ground too, easing 0.2% to $10.42 � a bushel for September delivery, and by 0.3% to $10.48 � a bushel for November.

'Overbought' sugar

Softs were a better refuge for bulls, with New York coffee setting a fresh 13-year closing high, as reported elsewhere on Agrimoney.com.

A weaker dollar supported cocoa in New York too, which closed up 0.5% to $2,736 a tonne, while its London peer lost 1.8% to �1,907 a tonne.

However, sugar did the reverse, closing 0.5% higher at $608.80 a tonne in London, for October delivered whites, while New York raw sugar for the same month fell 0.3% to 21.38 cents a pound.

Analysts at Sucden Financial noted that the relative strength indicator, a technical signal based on comparing up with down moves, had hit a figure of 80 on a scale of 100, into "overbought" territory.