April 22, 2009

Soy futures traded on China's Dalian Commodity Exchange settled higher Wednesday, following the recovery in financial and commodities markets overnight.

 

The benchmark January 2010 soy contract settled RMB41 a metric tonne higher at RMB3,468/tonne, or up 1.2%.

 

Chicago Board of Trade soy futures rallied Tuesday, recouping most of Monday's losses on bullish underlying fundamentals and technically inspired buying.

 

Strong Chinese demand helped to support soy prices.

 

China's soy imports in March remained high, rising 67% on year to 3.86 million tonnes, the General Administration of Customs said Wednesday.

 

However, high imports may lead to supply exceeding demand, which could weigh on prices later this year, said Huang Xiao, a manager at Capital Futures.

 

Soy imports in April could reach 3.5 million tonnes and may even top 4 million tonnes in May due to better crushing profits, analysts said.

 

The continuing domestic technical rebound may not be strong as many funds have already sold short, showing expectations for lower prices, said Li Lei, an analyst with China National Cereals Trade Corp.

 

Trading volume of all soy contracts declined to 241,808 lots from 562,046 lots Tuesday.

 

Open interest fell 13,082 lots to 354,148 lots Wednesday.

 

Corn futures, soymeal futures, soyoil futures and palm oil futures all settled higher.

 

Following are Wednesday'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                  Jan 2010          3,468         Up  41        241,808

Corn                Sep 2009          1,668         Up   8        103,652

Soymeal          Sep 2009           2,832        Up  35     1,003,696

Palm Oil           Sep 2009           6,306        Up 100       508,932

Soyoil              Sep 2009           6,910        Up  76        853,960