Soyabean futures at the Chicago Board of Trade were firm by Friday's midsession and off their early highs on concerns that the US soyabean crop will be stressed next week as hot, dry weather returns to the Midwest, traders said.
The CBOT electronic markets were closed due to technical difficulties while trade remained open in the pit-traded session.
August soyabeans were steady at $5.76 per bushel and November was up 3/4 cent at $5.96-1/4 per bushel by 11:15 am CDT (1615 GMT).
Buy was scattered among commission houses. ABN Amro, J.P. Morgan, R.J. O'Brien, Tenco, Goldenberg Hehmeyer each bought 100-200 November, traders said.
It has been a bouncing weather market for soyabeans all week - heat worries rallied soyabeans on Wednesday, then on Thursday prices were under pressure after rains and cooler temperatures moved through the US crop belt. August is the critical yield-determining period for US soyabeans as they set and fill pods.
Informa Economics pegged 2006 US soya production at 3.072 billion bushels and an average yield of 41.5 bushels per acre, traders said. That was above USDA's July US soya forecast for 3.01 billion bushels, with an average yield of 40.7 bpa.
The November contract closed below all key moving averages on Thursday and broke through its first level of resistance at its 100-day moving average of $5.99-1/2 in overnight trade but was trading below that level at Friday's midsession.
There was another round of big August soyabean deliveries - 1,343 lots - which were met by scattered stopping. Spot basis bids for soyabeans were mixed on Friday after scattered sales the past week, dealers said. The soya products were mixed with soyameal gaining on soyaoil, a reverse of the recent trend as the oil/meal spread corrected some.
August soyameal was up 60 cents at $163 per ton, deferreds were up 90 cents to $1.50 per ton.
August soyaoil was down 0.10 cent at 26.45 cents per lb, with deferreds down 0.15 to up 0.02. Malaysian palm oil closed lower.
There were 598 August soyameal deliveries early Friday which were met by scattered stopping. In soyaoil, there were 56 August deliveries and the ADM house account stopped 46 lots.