Tuesday: China soy futures settle up on technical rebound, equities

 

 

Soy futures traded on China's Dalian Commodity Exchange settled higher Tuesday in a technical rebound from recent losses.

 

The benchmark May 2010 soy contract settled RMB17 a metric tonne higher at RMB3,574/tonne, or up 0.5%.

 

Soy and soy products have been falling in recent sessions due to concerns about tightening local cash liquidity and expectations of a big U.S. crop.

 

Monetary policy is unlikely to be as loose as it was in the first half of the year, so commodities futures are likely to remain under downward pressure, said Wang Xiaoguang, an analyst with Galaxy Futures.

 

However, declines in soy have been milder than for soymeal, as they have been supported by the government's high soy sales prices.

 

A better performance in local equities has also helped sentiment somewhat.

 

China shares rose Tuesday for the sixth consecutive session, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index ending up 49.36 points, or 1.7% at 2930.48.

 

Trading volume of all soy contracts declined to 151,582 lots from 184,774 lots Monday.

 

Open interest fell 790 lots to 295,848 lots Tuesday.

 

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

 

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      3,574        Up    17          151,582

Corn       May 2010      1,746        Up     4           150,872

Soymeal  May 2010      2,758        Up    18        1,384,632

Palm Oil   May 2010      5,966        Dn    14        360,368

Soyoil      May 2010      7,038        Up    16        682,882