Monday: China soy futures settle up; dollar's dip helps commodities
Soy futures traded on the Dalian Commodity Exchange settled higher Monday, as the dollar's weakness helped commodities to rebound.
The benchmark September 2010 soy contract settled RMB35, or 0.9%, higher at RMB4,035 a metric tonne.
The contract opened higher, but consolidated for most of the session as traders remained cautious ahead of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's release Tuesday at 1330 GMT of final 2009 production forecasts, updated soy supply and demand tables and quarterly usage.
"The dollar's support could be limited as (supply-and-demand) fundamentals will be in focus," said Xu Zhimou, an analyst with Ruida Futures Brokerage.
The return of dollar weakness followed Friday's bigger-than-expected fall in U.S. nonfarm employment.
However, analysts widely expect the USDA data to be slightly bearish for soy prices.
Oilseeds and vegetable oils are likely to consolidate lower, Xu said.
Other factors such as an on-track South America soy harvest and the paring of earlier gains in equities markets were also weighing on prices, analysts said.
Although the soy regained some of the ground lost in last week's fall, supply-demand fundamentals aren't clearly favorable enough to push prices higher, Galaxy Futures said in a note.
Trading volume of all soy contracts declined to 321,866 lots from 538,484 lots Friday.
Open interest rose 418 lots to 328,970 lots Monday.
Corn, soymeal, palm oil and soyoil futures all settled higher.
Following are Monday's settlement prices in yuan a metric tonne for benchmark contracts and volume for all contracts in lots (One lot is equivalent to 10 tonnes):
Contract Settlement Price Change Volume
Soy Sep 2010 4,035 Up 35 321,866
Corn Sep 2010 1,925 Up 10 249,480
Soymeal Sep 2010 2,989 Up 29 665,680
Palm Oil Sep 2010 7,156 Up 110 703,898
Soyoil Sep 2010 7,842 Up 80 726,994
