August 7, 2008
Thursday: China soybean futures settle lower, along with CBOT tumble
China's soybean futures traded on the Dalian Commodity Exchange settled mostly lower Thursday, along with declines on the Chicago Board of Trade overnight.
The benchmark January 2009 soybean contract settled RMB7 lower at RMB4,081/tonne, or down 0.2%, after trading in a range of RMB4,031-RMB4,138/tonne.
Open interest in various soybean contracts fell 18,506 lots to 469,836 lots Thursday.
The market has been consolidating since falling sharply in recent sessions, and sentiment has recovered somewhat for now, said Yu Haifeng, an analyst at Tianqi Futures.
He expects the benchmark contract to be strongly supported at RMB3,800/tonne.
Traders are likely to stay on the sidelines until the U.S. Department of Agriculture releases a supply and demand report Tuesday.
Analysts expect an increase in soybean unit yield estimates, as the negative effects of earlier floods in U.S.'s major soybean producing areas was overestimated, and weather has been mostly good since then, they said.
Soyoil futures, palm oil futures, soymeal futures and corn futures settled mostly lower.
Corn prices were lower on falling cash prices, as the government has been selling corn to stabilize prices.
Meanwhile, feedmeal demand is likely to remain sluggish until September, weighing on prices, Guangfa Futures said in a note.
Thursday's settlement prices in yuan a metric tonne and volume for all contracts in lots (one lot is equivalent to 10 tonnes):
Contract Settlement Price Change Volume
Soybean Jan 2009 4,081 Dn 7 1,300,386
Corn Jan 2009 1,779 Dn 4 239,492
Soymeal Jan 2009 3,336 Dn 11 883,466
Palm Oil Jan 2009 7,818 Dn 82 21,762
Soyoil Jan 2009 9,014 Dn 32 445,630
