Tuesday: China soy futures settle up on CBOT; cash prices rising

 

 

Soy futures traded on the Dalian Commodity Exchange settled higher Tuesday, supported by gains on the Chicago Board of Trade overnight.

 

The benchmark May 2010 soy contract settled RMB14 higher at RMB3,742 a metric tonne, up 0.4%.

 

Concerns about harvest disruptions due to rains in soy areas of the Midwestern U.S. helped to push contracts prices higher on the CBOT.

 

The benchmark contract on the DCE opened higher under pressure from Monday's gains in Chicago, but edged lower during the session as CBOT contracts fell back in electronic trading in Asia Tuesday.

 

Cash soy prices in China's major producing areas have risen steadily recently. Farmers have been reluctant to sell, anticipating increases in prices due to supportive government policies.

 

However, upward momentum is likely to fade in the near term due to supply pressure from the harvest and large government reserves, analysts said.

 

Trading volume of all soy contracts declined to 194,310 lots from 242,078 lots Monday.

 

Open interest fell 1,436 lots to 287,134 lots Tuesday.

 

Corn futures and soymeal futures settled marginally lower, palm oil futures settled a tad higher and soyoil futures settled unchanged.

 

Following are Tuesday'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         May 2010      3,742        Up    14          194,310

Corn       May 2010      1,746        Dn     2           86,142

Soymeal  May 2010      2,862        Dn    4          1,580,328

Palm Oil  May 2010      6,166        Up     2           159,326

Soyoil     May 2010      7,234        Unch              653,056