The Chicago Board of Trade soyabean market sank on Thursday amid financial worries after China's main stock index closed 3 percent lower, traders said.
"There's a ton of volatility coming in lately and it has as much to do with outside markets and financial market uncertainty as it does with anything agricultural related," said Randy Mittelstaedt, analyst with RJ O'Brien, a Chicago trade house. Weakness in the products added pressure to soyabeans.
Export sales from last week for soyaoil and soyameal were disappointing and another round of huge March deliveries underscored the weakness in the meal and oil cash markets. Soyabeans and soyameal slipped below their 20-day moving averages and soyaoil broke its 50-day MA after all three markets climbed to multiyear highs within the past week.
"Any time you get to historically high price levels you're going to get market action like this. You're in uncharted territory, or at least uncharted territory for quite a while," Mittelstaedt added. March soyabeans closed 27 cents lower at $7.46-1/4 per bushel. The back months ended 12 to 27 cents weaker.
March soyameal settled $4.60 per ton lower at $219.80 per ton, with the deferreds down $2.50 to $6.30. Soyaoil was 0.55 to 1.02 cent weaker, with March down 0.72 at 29.53 cents per lb. Commodity funds were featured sellers across the complex, with electronic volume heavy, traders said.
But commercials took advantage of the break to price soyabeans, meal and oil. Funds sold 13,000 soyabean contracts, 4,500 soyameal and 4,000 soyaoil. But commercials Bungle and Term Commodities each bought at least 2,000 to 3,500 may soyabean contracts. J.P. Morgan and Tenco each bought at least 500 soyameal contracts and J.P. Morgan bought 1,500 may soyaoil.
The US Agriculture Department said 516,500 tonnes of soyabeans (415,500 tonnes of old crop) were sold for export last week, compared to estimates 300,000 to 500,000 tonnes. Soyameal export sales (old and new crop) were a minus 4,100 tonnes due to a cancellation from Jamaica for 5,000 tonnes of meal for delivery in 2007/08.
Old-crop sales of 800 tonnes were a marketing year low. Weekly soyaoil export sales were minus 8,900 tonnes of soyaoil (old crop), reflecting a cancellation of 10,300 tonnes from Mexico.
There were 885 March soyabean deliveries, 1,760 March soyameal deliveries and 4,344 soyaoil postings. At its annual outlook conference, USDA pegged US soya acres at 70.5 million, down from 76 million planted in 2006. The number was within trade expectations. Traders are waiting for the March 30 planting report and spring planting conditions. The outlook conference will release its 2007/08 demand projections on Friday.
Comments
Comments are closed.