SINGAPORE - Chicago wheat futures lost ground on Monday as the market eased from its highest since late-June, although tightening world supplies and rising prices in top exporters limited losses.

Soybeans slid after two sessions of gains, while corn dropped for a second day.

FUNDAMENTALS

The most-active wheat contract of the Chicago Board of Trade was down 1% at $5.27 a bushel, as of 0051 GMT. The market on Friday climbed to $5.33 a bushel, the highest since June 28.

Soybeans gave up 0.2% to $9.32 a bushel and corn fell 0.5% to $3.89-1/4 a bushel.

Wheat drew support last week as worsening crop prospects in southern hemisphere exporters Argentina and Australia, as well as weather-hampered spring wheat harvests in North America, have shifted attention away from large global stocks.

Australia's wheat production this year is expected to drop to 15.5 million tonnes, National Australia Bank said on Friday as it cut its forecast to well below recent market estimates of around 19 million tonnes.

In Argentina, recent rains have not been strong enough to help wheat fields after weeks of dryness, the Buenos Aires Grains Exchange said on Thursday.

Egypt last week bought 405,000 tonnes of Russian, French and Ukrainian wheat at an international tender at prices that were higher than what it paid a week earlier.

Soybeans drew support from strong weekly export sales data along with worries about U.S. yields, particularly in light of recent snowfall in Minnesota and North Dakota. The U.S. Department  of Agriculture (USDA) is scheduled to release updated crop monthly crop estimates on Nov. 8.

In its weekly export sales report, the USDA put export sales of U.S. soybeans in the week ended Oct. 10 at just over 1.6 million tonnes, at the top end of trade expectations.

Still, Chinese importers have been busy booking fresh purchases of soybeans from Brazil this week, despite the White House announcement that China had agreed to buy up to $50 billion of U.S. farm products annually during trade talks last week.

The purchases from Brazil, rather than the United States, show that Chinese buying has been driven more by price than policy since last week's preliminary trade agreement that U.S. President Donald Trump hopes will be signed next month.

MARKET NEWS

Asian stocks were steady in a cautious start to the week on Monday, while the British pound fell following a delay to a crucial vote on Britain's divorce from the European Union.       

(Reporting by Naveen Thukral, Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)

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