April 8, 2009
Wednesday: China soy futures settle down as government purchases to end
Soybean futures traded on the Dalian Commodity Exchange settled lower Wednesday, with government purchases drawing to a close.
A fall on the Chicago Board of Trade overnight also helped weigh on the market.
The benchmark September 2009 soybean contract settled RMB23 a metric tonne lower at RMB3,585/tonne.
The government's purchases of 6 million tonnes of local soybeans are scheduled to be completed by the end of this month, and farmers still have a lot of soybeans on hand.
Farmers are willing to sell while production at many processing plants in the northeast producing areas has been suspended due to a lack of profits, said traders.
Weakness in crude oil prices and equities markets also contributed to the sluggish sentiment toward soybeans.
Trading volume for all soybean contracts declined to 238,294 lots from 325,994 lots Tuesday.
Open interest fell 6,146 lots to 320,698 lots.
Corn futures settled unchanged and soymeal futures settled up, while soyoil futures and palm oil futures settled lower.
Comparatively strong soymeal cash prices helped support the futures.
Wednesday's settlement prices in yuan a metric tonne for benchmark contracts and the volume for all contracts in lots (One lot is equivalent to 10 tonnes):
Contract Settlement Price Change Volume
Soybean Sep 2009 3,585 Dn 23 238,294
Corn Sep 2009 1,687 Unch 60,180
Soymeal Sep 2009 2,851 Up 15 1,725,578
Palm Oil Sep 2009 5,776 Dn 26 269,332
Soyoil Sep 2009 6,566 Dn 36 806,514
