US soyabean futures unofficially closed higher on Wednesday, buoyed by profit-taking in the corn/soyabean spreads, which had been heavily favouring corn in recent days, traders said. The upbeat close ended a three-day losing streak for soyabeans, and offered an incentive for farmers to seed more land with soya in place of corn.
Farmers are expected to plant the second-largest area with corn this year since World War Two. The new-crop CBOT November soya/December corn spread was trading at a ratio of about 2.12 at Wednesday's close. Gains in soyabeans were logged despite Brazil's crop supply agency Conab on Wednesday raising its estimate of the country's 2010/11 soyabean crop by nearly 3 percent to a record 72.2 million tonnes from its March forecast of 70.3 million. Analysts expect the US Agriculture Department's upcoming supply and demand report to peg soyabean ending stocks at 137 million bushels, below the March USDA estimate of 140 million bushels.