Soyabean futures at the Chicago Board of Trade were mixed early on Wednesday and the market was consolidating before the US government releases its prospective plantings and March 1 stocks reports on Friday.
At 10:55 am CST (1655 GMT), CBOT soya was up 1-1/2 cents to down 1/4 cent, with May up 1/4 at $5.81-3/4 per bushel. July was unchanged at $5.94-1/2.
Traders and analysts have said that record large US soya stocks and the ongoing South American soya harvest loom over the market. Expectations that USDA on Friday will forecast that US farmers will plant more soyabean acres this spring than a year ago were also bearish.
An average of analysts' estimates pegged 2006 US soyabean acreage at 74.217 million, compared to 72.1 million last year. Analysts forecast March 1 US soya stocks at 1.680 billion bushels, above the 1.381 billion of a year earlier. But worries about speculative buying by commodity funds along with strong energy markets this week kept sellers sidelined.
With the boom in renewable energy products like soya biodiesel and corn-based ethanol, grains and soyabeans have at times followed crude oil and gasoline markets. Energy markets rallied on Tuesday and were showing signs of stabilising on Wednesday.
The May contract is below key moving averages with first major resistance at the 20-day moving average of $5.84-1/2.
Midwest spot basis bids for soyabeans were firmer early Wednesday as dealers tried to entice farmers to sell.
Soyameal was 20 cents per ton lower to 20 cents higher with soyameal also consolidating amid pre-report positioning, traders said. May was down 10 cents at $178.30 per ton. Soyaoil was 0.05 cent per lb lower to 0.03 higher and also was rangebound and consolidating along with soyabeans. May was down 0.01 at 22.90 cents per lb.
Comments
Comments are closed.