Chicago Board of Trade soyabean futures dropped to their lowest prices in more than a week on Friday as the market gave up gains late in the trading session and ended lower for the week. Selling ahead of the weekend dragged down prices, after soyabean futures previously rose along with corn and wheat.
CBOT August soyabeans ended down 3-1/4 cents at $8.63-1/2 a bushel. The contract lost more than 4 percent on the week. New-crop November soyabeans settled 3-1/2 cents lower at $8.80 a bushel. That was down 4 percent on the week. Worries about worsening trade relations with top global soya buyer China continued to hang over the market, according to traders. Beijing says it will impose an extra 25 percent import duty on more than 500 US goods, including soyabeans, on July 6.
Expectations for a large US crop yields this year have recently added pressure to prices, following ample rains in the US Midwest farm belt. An unfavorable heat wave hitting the farm belt this weekend is considered to be more of a risk for corn plants than soyabeans. Traders said they found few surprises in US Department of Agriculture crop data that showed farmers planted more soyabean acres than corn for the first time in 35 years. The agency pegged soya plantings at 89.557 million acres, below the average analyst estimates for 89.691 million.
The USDA separately said domestic soyabean supplies stood at 1.222 billion bushels as of June 1, topping the record of 1.092 billion set in 2007. That was near analysts' forecast for 1.225 billion bushels, providing little shock. In another report, the USDA said exporters struck deals to sell 130,632 metric tons of US soyabeans for delivery to Mexico during the 2018/19 marketing year.