Friday: China soy futures settle tad down; tracking CBOT weakness

 

 

Soy futures traded on the Dalian Commodity Exchange settled marginally lower Friday, tracking a weak performance on the Chicago Board of Trade overnight.

 

The benchmark September 2010 soy contract settled RMB3, or 0.1%, lower at RMB3,928 a metric tonne.

 

Overall weakness in commodities hit sentiment, dragging prices down in late trade.

 

The contract stayed well above support at RMB3,900/tonne, however, as market participants don't see much room to fall with cash prices remaining stable.

 

Soy cash prices were only slightly lower in the week to Friday, despite significant declines in futures prices earlier in the week.

 

The government's purchases from the local crop and stable demand ahead of the Chinese New Year in mid-February will continue to support prices, analysts said.

 

Trading volume of all soy contracts rose to 318,852 lots from 196,318 lots Thursday.

 

Open interest increased 5,724 lots to 327,758 lots Friday.

 

Corn futures, soyoil futures and palm oil futures settled slightly lower, while soymeal futures settled marginally higher.

 

Following are Friday'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      3,928        Dn    3    318,852

Corn       Sep 2010      1,893        Dn    4     82,424

Soymeal  Sep 2010      2,892        Up    4  1,136,392

Palm Oil  Sep 2010      6,868        Dn   14    591,132

Soyoil     Sep 2010      7,528        Dn   44    822,910