Chicago | Reuters — Chicago Board of Trade soybean futures hit a four-month high on Tuesday on strength in Chinese soy markets and technical buying, analysts said.
Corn inched higher while wheat closed mixed ahead of the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday.
Chicago Board of Trade soybeans for January delivery settled up 9-3/4 cents at $10.30 per bushel after reaching $10.33-1/4, the contract’s highest since July 20 (all figures US$).
December corn ended up 1-1/4 cents at $3.51 a bushel while December wheat fell three cents at $4.07-1/4 a bushel.
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CBOT soybeans took cues from soybean and soymeal futures on China’s Dalian Commodity Exchange, where the January soymeal contract reached its highest level since July.
“The whole soy complex has been led by the Chinese buying. We got high enough that we saw some technical buying come into the market,” said Don Roose, president of U.S. Commodities.
Soybeans also drew support from uncertainty about crop weather as the South American growing season gets underway.
“There are no weather problems yet, but it is a La Nina-type year, and the trade is fearful that Argentina and southern Brazil, that they turn dry,” Roose said.
Soymeal rose the most in the soy complex by percentage, gaining against soyoil on inter-market spreads despite the U.S. Department of Agriculture confirming that private exporters sold 30,000 tonnes of soyoil to China in the last day.
Corn posted its fourth straight higher close, drawing support from soybeans, but abundant stockpiles following a record-large U.S. harvest curbed upward momentum.
“People are still trading export demand in the (soy) complex, and maybe backing off corn and wheat a little bit because of large supplies,” said Terry Reilly, senior commodity analyst with Futures International.
Wheat closed mixed, with K.C. hard red winter wheat futures firming on worries about dry weather. In a crop report released after the market close on Monday, USDA rated 58 per cent of the U.S. winter wheat crop as good to excellent, down from 59 per cent the previous week.
— Julie Ingwersen is a Reuters correspondent covering grain markets from Chicago. Additional reporting for Reuters by Colin Packham in Sydney and Gus Trompiz in Paris.
