Grain Prices Dragged by Algos, U.S.-China Spat, JPMorgan Says

  • Lack of longer-term investors imperils crop markets, bank says
  • U.S. planting woes bringing back fundamentals: strategist

A truck hauls a load of corn between grain bins on a farm during harvest in Walnut, Illinois.

Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
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The rise in algorithmic trading and the U.S.-China trade dispute have combined to hurt crop growers, according to a J.P. Morgan Research study published Tuesday.

Even as yields climbed over the past decade, some longer-term investors exited agricultural markets, Tracey Allen, agricultural commodities strategist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in London, said in the study. European pension funds withdrew funds from the sector in 2013 over concerns they were inflating food prices.