Chicago soybeans, corn higher ahead of holiday

Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) corn and soybean futures closed higher on Wednesday, due in part to investors short-covering ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday.

Soybeans led the gains as January soybeans delivery rose 11.5 cents, or 1.33 percent, to close at 8.7525dollars per bushel.

Meanwhile, the most active corn contract for March delivery added 3.25 cents, or 0.88 percent, to close at 3.7275 U.S. dollars per bushel. March wheat slipped 1 cents, or 0.2 percent, to close at 4.875 dollars per bushel.

Chicago soybean was an upside price leader on Wednesday as money managers exited their bets on lower prices, which lifted the market. Analysts said investors often close out bearish bets prior to a pause in trade to reduce their risk in case of a major political or macroeconomic event.

Corn prices bounced back as a weekly ethanol production report released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration on Wednesday showed U.S. produced a record amount of ethanol last week, which was seen as bullish to corn futures.

U.S. ethanol production through the week ending Nov. 20 was up 3.4 percent from the prior week, to 1,008,000 barrels per day, which used an estimated more than 100 million bushels of corn, higher than the pace needed to meet the U.S. Department of Agriculture's forecast, the report showed.

Meanwhile, March wheat was slightly lower on the day, amid the talk of Russia trying to set up as many roadblocks as possible to slow the Russian wheat to Turkey, the second largest importer of Russian wheat.

"Turkish millers can run down their wheat stocks for a few weeks, but by mid-December, they have to seek wheat elsewhere if Russia maintains a de facto embargo," said AgResource company, a Chicago-based agricultural research institute. "This may be seen as bullish to U.S. wheat futures."