March 27, 2009
Friday: China soy futures settle down a tad; most commodities weak
Soybean futures traded on China's Dalian Commodity Exchange settled marginally lower Friday, amid broad weakness in domestic commodities markets.
The benchmark September 2009 soybean contract settled RMB2 a metric tonne lower at RMB3,572/tonne.
"The market lacked momentum to rise further after the recent crude-led surge," and it needed to take a breather ahead of the weekend, said Xu Wenjie, an analyst with Tianma Futures Co.
The benchmark contract stayed in the positive territory for most of the morning session, but fell into negative territory in the afternoon, as crude oil stayed below its New York close and domestic commodities from metals to sugar trended weaker.
There were rumors circulating that the government might sell one million tonnes of soybeans into the market. However, Sui Zhi, an analyst with Longma Consultation, said such sales would be very unlikely as the government hasn't yet completed planned purchases of 6 million tonnes in a program designed to support soybean prices.
Trading volume of all soybean contracts rose to 324,206 lots from 183,026 lots Thursday.
Open interest rose 7,836 lots to 321,706 lots Friday.
Corn futures settled little changed, soymeal futures settled lower, while soyoil futures and palm oil futures settled slightly higher.
Friday'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 3,572 Dn 2 324,206
Corn Sep 2009 1,702 Dn 1 98,424
Soymeal Sep 2009 2,715 Dn 29 1,113,084
Palm Oil Sep 2009 5,500 Up 36 217,012
Soyoil Sep 2009 6,398 Up 20 759,334
