Soybean futures at the Chicago Board of Trade closed firm Wednesday on a technical bounce, traders said. The market was due for a rebound after the May contract fell to a 3-1/2-month low this week, trading below all key moving averages. May soy gapped higher on the open, encouraging technical buying.
But it wasn't a runaway market, with May closing 1-3/4 cents per bushel higher at $5.77 - after meeting resistance at $5.81-1/2, near its 10-day moving average of $5.81-3/4. The back months settled 1-1/2 to 3-3/4 cents higher.
The soybean market followed corn this week amid aggressive buying and selling of corn by ABN Amro, reflecting the moves of a commodity fund, traders said. But soy broke the trend on Wednesday, gaining on corn.
"There seems to be a real disconnect in the markets. I don't understand it and I've been down here for 20 years ... a lot of it has to do with money flow, especially in corn," one veteran CBOT floor trader said.
ABN Amro was featured in corn again on Wednesday as the firm bought 10,000 July $2.20 calls and sold 7,000 July futures, a market neutral position.
Some support stemmed from outlooks that soy yields in Parana and Mato Grosso, Brazil, may not be as big as expected. Additionally, there were easing concerns about the spread of bird flu in China, with Chinese markets firmer overnight, CBOT traders said.
Midwest spot basis bids for soybeans early Wednesday were steady to firm as grain dealers tried to stimulate some country movement. But the higher CBOT soy market on Wednesday sparked some light corn and soy movement, floor traders said.
The soy products followed soybeans on a technical bounce, traders said.
May soymeal closed $1.20 up at $175.30 per ton, with deferreds up 90 cents to $1.40. May soyoil settled 0.05 cent firmer at 22.88 per lb, with the deferreds up 0.07 to 0.11 cent. Funds bought about 1,000 each of soybean and soymeal futures and about 500 soyoil.
The US Census Bureau will release its February crush data on Thursday.
The average of analysts' estimates for the US February crush was 136.1 million bushels, below the 151.5 million crushed in January and 137.6 million in February 2005.
Malaysian palm oil futures closed firm overnight.
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