February 12, 2007
Monday: China soybean futures settle up on CBOT; corn futures down
Soybean futures traded on China's Dalian Commodity Exchange settled higher Monday, tracking gains in Chicago Board of Trade soybean contracts Friday.
The most active September 2007 contract settled RMB7 higher at RMB3,174 a metric tonne.
Total trading volume declined to 134,132 lots from 136,776 lots Friday. One lot equals 10 tonnes.
CBOT soybean futures finished moderately higher Friday in a rebound buoyed by technical strength and continued bullishness over expectations of an acreage loss this spring, shrugging off the U.S. Department of Agriculture's supply and demand report.
The USDA increased its 2006-07 soybean ending stocks forecast to 595 million bushels from the 575 million bushels forecast in January. The new estimate was above the average analyst expectation of 569 million bushels.
It also lowered its U.S. soybean export forecast, it said, primarily because of strong competition from South American countries and weaker-than-expected Chinese imports.
"Soybean futures prices, supported by fund buying, are unlikely to fall (much) amid expectations of more Chinese imports after the Lunar New Year," said a Beijing-based trader.
This year, the Lunar New Year falls on Feb. 18.
Soymeal futures and soyoil contracts settled mostly lower.
The most active September soymeal contract settled RMB8 lower at RMB2,647/tonne, while the benchmark May 2007 soyoil contract settled RMB48 lower at RMB6,504/tonne.
Corn futures also settled lower, but the benchmark September corn contract settled unchanged at RMB1,713/tonne.
Trading volume for corn contracts totaled 185,408 lots, compared to 171,190 lots Friday.
Expectations of a slowdown in overall economic growth put downward pressure on commodity futures prices, said Ding Haijiang, a trader at Nanhua Futures Co.
The Chinese government expects the country's gross domestic product growth to slow down this year from a 10.7% rise in 2006, the most rapid annual growth since 1995.
