March 26, 2009
Thursday: China soy futures settle down on CBOT; back to fundamentals
China's soybean futures traded on the Dalian Commodity Exchange settled lower Thursday, along with weakness in Chicago Board of Trade and crude oil prices overnight.
The benchmark Sep 2009 soybean contract settled RMB18 a metric tonne lower at RMB3,574/tonne, or down 0.5%.
As the commodities market has fully digested the inflation concerns brought up by the U.S. Federal Reserve's credit market rescue measures, supply-and-demand fundamentals have become the key to deciding the near term trend, said Yu Ruiguang, an analyst with Tianqi Futures, in a note.
Soybean futures face downward pressure from the U.S. Department of Agriculture report to be released at the end of this month, which is likely to increase its area forecast for the crop.
Meanwhile, the Argentina strike has been digested by the market as well, and traders were unwilling to push the market aggressively higher.
High imports of soybeans also plagued the market.
There are 3.8 million tonnes of imported soybeans at Chinese ports, while the Ministry of Commerce in its newly issued report expected China to import 3.83 million tonnes of soybeans in March.
China imported 3.26 million tonnes of soybean in February, up 61% on year.
Trading volume of all soybean contracts declined to 183,026 lots from 248,456 lots Wednesday.
Open interest fell 3,124 lots to 313,870 lots Thursday.
Corn futures and soymeal futures settled lower, while soyoil futures and palm oil futures settled higher.
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
Soybean Sep 2009 3,574 Dn 18 183,026
Corn Sep 2009 1,703 Dn 6 70,808
Soymeal Sep 2009 2,744 Dn 27 905,148
Palm Oil Sep 2009 5,464 Up 52 208,830
Soyoil Sep 2009 6,378 Up 8 671,894
