The Chicago Board of Trade soyabean market dived on Friday in reaction to USA's surprisingly large domestic soya acreage estimate, traders said.
May soya closed 16-1/4 cents lower at $5.71-1/2 per bushel. The contract fell below support at its 20-day moving average of $5.83-1/2 to reach a low of $5.70-3/4. New-crop November settled 12-3/4 cents lower at $6.02-3/4.
In its yearly prospective plantings report, USDA forecast US farmers would seed 76.895 million acres of soyabeans this spring. That would be a record. The forecast was above the average of analysts' estimates for 74.217 million and sharply above last year's planted acreage of 72.1 million.
"It was a shockingly bearish planted acres figure for soyabeans but since you had a comparably bullish figure for corn that might actually mitigate the bearish impact of the soyabean plantings figures," said Anne Frisk, oilseed analyst with Prudential Financial.
The drop came at the expense of 3.7 million fewer US corn plantings. Farmers were expected to plant more soyabeans as they are cheaper to plant, requiring less fuel and fertiliser than corn. "The economics of corn versus beans clearly don't argue this kind of shift," said analyst Randy Mittelstaedt, with Chicago trade house RJ O'Brien.
"You're looking at a rapidly expanding demand base for corn with ethanol and China being out of the export market. You're seeing the exact opposite for beans right now," he added. USDA also reported that US soya stocks on March 1 at 1.669 billion a record and 21 percent above last year's stocks.
The jump reflected last year's bumper crop and a lagging export phase this season.
But March 1 stocks were below an average of analysts' estimates for 1.680 billion. Spot basis bids for soya were steady on Friday afternoon, with soya sales light and scattered as the drop in CBOT prices deterred sales, dealers said.
Overnight exports featured South Korea passing on a tender to buy 55,000 tonnes of Brazilian soyabeans or US. Taiwan bought 23,000 tonnes of US corn and 12,000 tonnes of US soya. Soyameal and soyaoil were pressured by the weakness in soyabeans.
CBOT May soyameal closed $4.80 lower at $174.60 per ton, with deferreds down $4.10 to $4.90.
CBOT May soyaoil settled 0.38 cent weaker at 22.79 cents per lb, with the back months down 0.16 to 0.27 cent.
Some support to soyaoil stemmed from India cutting its base import prices for crude soyabean oil more than palm oil, traders said. The soyabean oil base price fell $13 a tonne versus palm oil that dropped $4 a tonne.
Commodity funds sold about 6,000 soyabean futures, 2,500 soyaoil and 1,000 soyaoil, traders said.
Estimated volume was heavy across the complex. In soyabeans, an estimated 106,019 futures and 27,043 options traded. Soyameal trade was pegged at 35,620 futures and 2,792 options. Estimated soyaoil trade was 25,791 futures and 2,967 options.
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