Thursday: China soy futures settle down; traders stay on sidelines

 

 

Soy futures traded on the Dalian Commodity Exchange settled lower Thursday, giving back yesterday's gains after losses on the Chicago Board of Trade overnight.

 

The benchmark September 2010 soy contract settled down RMB25, or 0.7%, at RMB3,742 a metric tonne.

 

The contract opened lower, and consolidated in a tight RMB40 range during the session.

 

Trading was very light as traders watched the market cautiously. A good harvest expected from South America, a strong dollar and weaker crude oil prices all plagued market sentiment, keeping long position holders on the sidelines.

 

The inability of CBOT soy to build on Tuesday's technical rebound added to concerns in the market. CBOT March soy ended 17 1/2 cents, or 1.9%, lower at US$9.08 Wednesday.

 

However, analysts said there could still be some opportunities for prices to rebound in the near term.

 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is scheduled to release its supply-and-demand report Tuesday, and the market expects ending stocks to fall, lending support to the prices.

 

Trading volume of all soy contracts declined to 259,240 lots from 303,682 lots Wednesday.

 

Open interest rose 3,766 lots to 357,624 lots Thursday.

 

Corn futures, soyoil futures, palm oil futures and soymeal futures all settled lower.

 

Following are Thursday'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      3,742        Dn   25    259,240

Corn       Sep 2010      1,849        Dn   10     65,772

Soymeal  Sep 2010      2,712        Dn   13    814,862

Palm Oil  Sep 2010      6,648        Dn   26    450,224

Soyoil     Sep 2010      7,250        Dn   32    531,730