April 16, 2009

China's soybean futures traded on the Dalian Commodity Exchange settled higher Thursday, in line with gains by counterparts on the Chicago Board of Trade's electronic board during the Asian day.

 

The benchmark Jan 2010 soybean contract settled RMB25 a metric tonne higher at RMB3,539/tonne, up 0.7%.

 

Chinese demand remains resilient despite the financial crisis, which has helped support global prices.

 

The country's first quarter economic data issued Thursday showed that the deepest part of the downturn may have passed following a huge wave of government spending.

 

The data prompted some economists to make bold declarations that the world's third-largest economy has staged an outright recovery.

 

"Some (vegetable oil) traders started to build up their stocks as the market is becoming optimistic," said Xu Wenjie, an analyst with Tianma Futures.

 

The state's purchases of domestic soybeans at RMB3,700/tonne will continue to keep resistance at that level, but there will be no problem for the new crop contract to rise further to RMB3,600/tonne, he added.

 

Trading volume of all soybean contracts declined to 228,802 lots from 234,562 lots Wednesday.

 

Open interest rose by 1,828 lots to 314,420 lots Thursday.

 

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

                  

Thursday'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

Soybean          Jan 2010          3,539         Up   25      228,802

Corn               Sep 2009         1,684          Unch           88,246

Soymeal         Sep 2009          2,918         Up   45    1,266,756

Palm Oil          Sep 2009          6,468         Up   66      378,878

Soyoil             Sep 2009          7,148         Up  138     930,092