Thursday: China soy futures settle down slightly; fail to maintain gains

 

 

Soy futures traded on the Dalian Commodity Exchange settled marginally lower Thursday, retreating from earlier gains due to weak supply-demand fundamentals.

 

The benchmark September 2010 soy contract settled down CNY9, or 0.2%, at CNY3,849 a metric tonne.

 

The contract opened slightly higher, following mild gains on the Chicago Board of Trade overnight. Prices edged lower during the session, however, due to a lack of positive fundamentals.

 

It is very difficult for local soy futures to post strong gains because cash trading is still sluggish and the CBOT hasn't risen consistently, Galaxy Futures said in a note.

 

Cash soy market trading was very light as most farmers in producing areas extend the Lunar New Year break until the Lantern Festival on Sunday.

 

The National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference will hold their annual meetings from next week, with agricultural issues expected to be a major topic.

 

Trading volume of all soy contracts declined to 220,884 lots from 240,154 lots Wednesday.

 

Open interest fell 7,660 lots to 350,210 lots Thursday.

 

Corn futures settled unchanged, while soyoil futures, soymeal futures and palm oil 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      3,849        Dn    9    220,884

Corn       Sep 2010      1,873        Unch        38,630

Soymeal  Sep 2010      2,840        Dn   14    937,068

Palm Oil  Sep 2010      6,924        Dn   38    395,378

Soyoil     Sep 2010      7,498        Dn   16    491,730