Monday: China soy futures settle up on US weather worries

 

 

Soy futures traded on the Dalian Commodity Exchange jumped Monday, supported by weather concerns in major U.S. producing areas.

 

The benchmark May 2010 soy contract settled CNY65 a metric tonne higher at CNY3,674/tonne, up 1.8%.

 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture projected a record soy crop in its October production forecast issued Friday, but the rise in output was tempered by reductions in forecasts for some states due to late season weather issues.

 

Late-season weather problems are taking a toll on selected soy crops, with disease and frost damage taking some yield off crops in Mississippi and Ohio.

 

The USDA crop report also aided sentiment by placing the crop output in 2009 at 3.250 billion bushels, below the average guess of 3.291 billion bushels but slightly above the September estimate of 3.245 billion bushels, said Penson GHCO in its report.

 

"The (prospect) of a weaker dollar and weather (concerns) pushed the short-term speculation in the market," said Xiao Jun, an analyst with commodities consultancy Shanghai JCI, adding today's rise helped stabilize market sentiment.

 

Trading volume for all soy contracts rose to 232,556 lots from 128,256 lots Friday.

 

Open interest rose 7,170 lots to 288,580 lots.

 

Corn futures settled lower, while soymeal futures, palm oil futures and soyoil futures all settled up.

 

Monday'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

Soy        May 2010      3,674        Up    65        232,556

Corn       May 2010      1,719        Dn    3          85,058

Soymeal  May 2010      2,829        Up   78       1,301,048

Palm Oil   May 2010      5,980        Up  104       231,688

Soyoil      May 2010      7,056        Up  170       516,870