By Kirk Maltais 



  -- Wheat for July delivery rose 0.6% to $5.04 3/4 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade Monday as traders took advantage of low wheat prices to buy back into futures. 


  -- Corn for July delivery fell 0.2% to $3.29 1/4 a bushel. 


  -- Soybeans for July delivery fell 0.3% to $8.69 a bushel. 


  HIGHLIGHTS 


  Bucking the Trend: Wheat futures on the CBOT turned higher Monday as traders opted to jump into wheat on sentiment that futures have fallen too low in recent days. 


  "While the supply fundamentals are burdensome, the market is in a short-term oversold condition, and new sellers might wait for a bounce," said RJO Futures. Since the start of the month, wheat futures on the CBOT have fallen nearly 3%. 


  Clear Weather Cloud: Weather continues to be a main pressure point for grains futures this week as supportive weather over the weekend looks to be conducive to robust Corn Belt development -- bad news for CBOT prices. 


  Clear weekend weather dragged down corn and soybean for most of Monday, said Tomm Pfitzenmaier of Summit Commodity Brokerage. 


  Second Wave Worries: Commodity futures in general were weighed down Monday by concern about a potential resurgence of Covid-19. While the U.S. dollar index on the Intercontinental Exchange traded lower, few commodities appear to be resisting coronavirus fears -- grains, livestock, precious metals, industrial metals and soft commodities were all in the red Monday. 


  "The broader commodity sector came under pressure again over the weekend as traders fretted about the possibility that rising coronavirus cases could lead to more restrictions that hurt demand," said Arlan Suderman of INTL FCStone. 


  INSIGHT 


  Soybean Shopper: China appears to be buying soybean exports from the U.S. with the USDA reporting China has purchased 390,000 metric tons of soybean exports for delivery in 2020-21. That makes it at least 1.23 million tons of soybeans that China has purchased since Thursday, hopeful news for soybean traders uncertain if China will fulfill its trade deal obligations. 


  "Beans had another big sale announced to China as China builds reserves and may be trying to work toward their phase 1 trade deal commitments," said Doug Bergman of RCM Alternatives. 


  Still Short: Even though China has purchased over 1.2 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans since Thursday, it appears that most of these deliveries are destined for next year. For the time being, U.S. export sales of soybeans remain slow, according to the USDA's latest grain export inspections report with soybean inspections totaling only 376,323 tons. That is higher than last week's figure, but down nearly 45% from inspections at this time last year. 


  AHEAD: 


  -- The EIA is due to release its weekly update on ethanol production and inventories at 10:30 a.m. EDT Wednesday. 


  -- The USDA is scheduled to release its latest weekly export sales numbers at 8:30 a.m. EDT Thursday. 


  -- The USDA is due to release its monthly cattle-on-feed report at 3 p.m. EDT Friday. 


  -- The CFTC is scheduled to release its weekly commitments of traders report at 3:30 p.m. EDT Friday. 


  Write to Kirk Maltais at kirk.maltais@wsj.com