July 1, 2009

Soy futures traded on the Dalian Commodity Exchange settled higher Wednesday, after a U.S. Department of Agriculture report released overnight showed lower-than-expected soy acreage.

 

The benchmark January 2010 soy contract settled RMB37 a metric tonne higher at RMB3,690/tonne, or up 1.0%.

 

U.S. 2009 soy planted area of 77.5 million acres is a record high and a 2% gain over 2008, the USDA said in its annual acreage report.

 

Analysts surveyed by Dow Jones have earlier estimated soy acreage at 78.305 million acres, up from the March projection of 76.024 million. The estimates from the 18 analysts surveyed ranged between 75.300 and 79.631 million acres.

 

As the market has corrected for some time before the expected unfavorable report, digesting the downward pressure already, the CBOT benchmark contracts recovered from Tuesday's intraday lows.

 

Meanwhile, as there is limited domestic supply anyway, domestic soy futures are well supported before the government's soy sales, said Gao Yunyue, an analyst with Dadi Futures Brokerage Co.

 

Trading volume of all soy contracts rose to 198,356 lots from 175,052 lots Tuesday.

 

Open interest fell 3,958 lots to 340,112 lots Wednesday.

 

Corn futures settled tad lower, while soymeal futures, soyoil futures and palm oil futures settled higher.

 

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      3,690        Up   37        198,356

Corn            Jan 2010      1,626        Dn    2          60,830

Soymeal      Jan 2010      2,942        Up   47     1,616,850

Palm Oil       Jan 2010      6,132        Up   24        392,982

Soyoil          Jan 2010      7,464        Up   82        950,250