Special Report: Global Financial Crisis

    CHICAGO, March 19 (Xinhua) -- Grain futures in Chicago Board of Trade soared on Thursday due to the U.S. Federal Reserve's plan to buy massive Treasuries, resulting in dollar's sharp decline.

    Corn future for May delivery gained 8.25 cents to 3.965 U.S. dollars a bushel. May soybean climbed 25.5 cents to 9.405 dollars per bushel and May wheat was up 25.25 cents, settled on 5.5525 dollars per bushel.

    The Federal Reserve announced Wednesday afternoon to buy 300 billion dollars in longer-term Treasuries and purchase 750 billion dollars in mortgage-backed securities and agency debt. This is considered to create more liquidation which is supposed to accelerate the inflation and weighed much on dollar.

    By the end of CBOT floor trading time, the dollar rate versus euro was at 1.3667 dollars, well down from 1.31 dollars before Fed decision was announced.

    Analysts indicated that the weak dollar means a lower price of U.S. grains, benefit to grains export sales. However, the weekly export sales released by U.S. Department of Agriculture were disappointed as the data were all under expectations. Soybean export sales for last week at 143,300 tones were the smallest of the marketing year because China pulled back sharply in their purchasing.

    Crude oil's surge provided some spillover support to grains with the April crude oil future closing above 50 dollars per barrel for the first time in this year.