January 27, 2006

 

Friday: China soybean futures settle up; Pre-holiday covering

 

 

China's Dalian Commodity Exchange soybean futures settled higher Friday on short-covering ahead of the Lunar New Year holidays.

 

The benchmark May 2006 soybean contract rose RMB19 a metric tonne to settle at RMB2,693/tonne, after trading between RMB2,684/tonne and RMB2,703/tonne.

 

Short-covering dominated the benchmark contract throughout the day, indicating short position holders were keen to trim their exposure to that contract ahead of the week-long market holiday next week.

 

Besides, investors were sidelined given many of them had already signed off earlier than usual ahead of the holiday.

 

China's commodities futures markets will close the whole week next week for Lunar New Year celebrations. They will reopen Feb. 6.

 

Total trading volume increased to 133,218 lots from 93,952 lots Thursday. One lot is equivalent to 10 metric tonnes.

 

The No. 2 soybean contracts, which can be delivered with soybeans harvested from genetically modified crops, settled mostly higher on short-covering.

 

The benchmark September 2006 contract rose RMB15/tonne to RMB2,572/tonne, after trading between RMB2,561/tonne and RMB2,593/tonne.

 

Soyoil futures settled mostly lower on pre-holiday long liquidation.

 

Benchmark September 2006 soyoil contract fell RMB2/tonne to settle at RMB5,047/tonne, after trading between RMB5,026/tonne and RMB5,068/tonne.

 

Dalian's soymeal futures settled higher as short-covering spilled over from soybean futures.

 

The benchmark May 2006 soymeal contract added RMB38/tonne to settle at RMB2,320/tonne, after trading between RMB2,310/tonne and RMB2,329/tonne.

 

Meanwhile, corn futures traded on the exchange settled mostly higher, with the most heavily traded September 2006 contract rising RMB12/tonne to settle at RMB1,439/tonne on light speculative buying.