September 1, 2006

 

China grain trade mostly more bullish this week

 

 

China's grain traders turned out to be mostly more positive in their outlook for the market in the week to Wednesday (Aug 30), with demand expected to increase in the autumn, according to a weekly survey by the China National Grains and Oils Information Centre released Friday (Sep 1).

 

Traders' bullishness on soybeans continued to look up, as demand has shown a trend of picking up lately. In addition, traders expect China's soybean output to decline this year, which would lead to more imports, said the government-backed think-tank. Traders also maintained their positive outlook for soymeal this week.

 

Their bullishness increased slightly, which could be mainly attributed to an increase in soymeal prices in recent days. They feel the recovery is gradually gathering momentum, with demand increasing and soy stocks declining, CNGOIC said.

 

Traders were still optimistic about corn, but an auction of old crop corn in the north-east, scheduled for mid-September, was weighing on their bullishness to some extent, it added.

 

Traders regained some confidence in soyoil this week, as demand is expected to rise in autumn due to the National day holidays and mid-fall festival, one of the most important traditional festivals in China.

 

The following ratings data are provided by CNGOIC's Marketing Monitoring Division:

  

                    Aug 30   Aug 23   Aug 16    Aug 9    Aug 2

   Corn            54.3       57.2      57.2       54.8      52.2

   Rice             49.4       51.9      52.5       55.0      55.6

   Wheat          52.7       49.2      48.1       45.8      45.2

   Soybeans     52.0       51.0      50.1       48.5      45.6

   Soymeal      54.5        54.2      53.5       53.5      51.8

   Soyoil          53.5       52.8       57.5       56.7      55.8

 

   Note:   10-extremely bearish,

              50-neutral

              100-extremely bullish