Chicago Board of Trade soybean futures on Friday traded near an eight-month high set a day earlier as buying driven by funds and technical factors continued to support the market, traders said. Traders say this week's gains in soybeans and corn have been fuelled by hedge funds and other investors plowing money into the sector, despite ample global supplies of crops.
Helping to support gains was a report from the National Oilseed Processors Association that said US processors crushed 156.690 million bushels of soybeans last month, making it the second-busiest March on record. Crushing was up from 146.181 million during February and above analysts' estimates for 156.248 million. Concerns that unfavourable crop weather in South America could shift export demand to the United States also continued to lend support to prices, traders said.
The US Department of Agriculture said private exporters sold 132,000 tonnes of US soybeans to top-importer China for 2016/2017 delivery. The CBOT May soybean contract ended up 8 cents at $9.56 a bushel after reaching $9.58-1/4. That was near Thursday's high of $9.59-1/2, which was the highest level for a most-active contract since mid-August. Front-month soybean futures were up 4.3 percent for the week, their biggest weekly rise since last summer. New-crop November soybeans ended up 7-1/4 cents at $9.66-1/2 after reaching $9.69, near a nine-month high of 9.69-3/4 reached on Thursday.
Comments
Comments are closed.