February 23, 2009
Monday: China soy futures settle up; rising with external markets
Soybean futures traded on China's Dalian Commodity Exchange settled higher Monday, rising with external markets.
The benchmark September 2009 soybean contract settled RMB56, or 1.7% higher at RMB3,442 a metric tonne.
Flush liquidity, expectations of further government support for agricultural commodities prices and broad gains in equities markets helped to push prices on the DCE up, although soy prices on the Chicago Board of Trade closed lower Friday.
Soybeans opened slightly above Friday's settlement price of RMB3,386/tonne, but rose sharply during the session.
"There could be more favorable policies for farmers during upcoming (important meetings)," said Yu Haifeng, an analyst at Tianqi Futures.
The annual meeting of the National People's Congress, China's legislature, will start March 5, while the annual meeting of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, an advisory body to the government, begins March 3.
The meetings will be closely watched for details of the government's economic plans to deal with a sharp slowdown in growth and rising job losses.
Financial markets usually rise during the two important sets of meetings on expectations of favorable government policies.
The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index, which tracks both A and B shares, ended up 2.0% Monday at 2305.78 points.
Trading volume in all soybean contracts declined to 435,482 lots from 458,746 lots Friday.
Open interest rose 4,830 lots to 328,424 lots Monday.
Corn futures, soyoil futures and palm oil futures settled higher, while soymeal futures settled lower.
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
Soybean Sep 2009 3,442 Up 56 435,482
Corn Sep 2009 1,691 Up 5 134,198
Soymeal Sep 2009 2,536 Dn 7 794,332
Palm Oil May 2009 5,166 Up 48 117,420
Soyoil May 2009 6,034 Up 18 378,646
