US soya rose for a second straight session on Monday, while wheat and corn inched down on concerns about the fallout of the European debt crisis, while investors hoped for new prime ministers in Greece and Italy to take decisive action. Demand for Italian bonds in a crucial sale was solid enough to lift European stocks and the euro from their lows on Monday, although both remained in negative territory on concerns about the debt crisis.
"There is very limited new fundamental news at present, and macro concerns continue to influence the market. This is going to last for a while," said Christopher Gadd of Macquarie Securities. "Once the harvest in South America starts. we are likely to see some downward pressure." The Chicago Board of Trade actively traded January soya rose 0.5 percent to $11.81-3/4 a bushel by 1220 GMT. December corn lost 0.35 percent to $6.45-1/2 a bushel, and December wheat fell 0.6 percent to $6.13 a bushel.
"It is the macroeconomic sentiment which is supporting grains and soyabeans," said Ker Chung Yang, an analyst at Phillip Futures in Singapore. "Prices are getting attractive for buyers like China to stock up. Lunar new year is just two months away and they have to buy now."
In Europe, benchmark January milling wheat traded at 184.25 euros a tonne, down 0.14 percent from Friday. Italy's president appointed former European Commissioner Mario Monti on Sunday to head a new government with the task of restoring market confidence in the euro zone's third-largest economy, whose debt burden is too big for the bloc to bail out.
In Greece, Lucas Papademos, a former European Central Bank policymaker, has been sworn in as prime minister and is under pressure to implement radical reforms. The market expects China to step up soya imports as it needs to stock up for the high-demand lunar new year break at the end of January.
China, which buys around 60 percent of beans traded across the world, imported 3.81 million tonnes in October, down 7.7 percent from 4.13 million in September, government data showed last week. But China will continue to increase imports of the oilseed in 2011/2012 to meet rising demand for animal feed production, although releases of state reserves could weigh on the numbers, traders said.
Fei Zhonghai, a trading executive with state-owned COFCO, estimated imports in 2011/12 would hit 58.5 million tonnes, exceeding the 52.3 million tonnes recorded in 2010/2011, a record. Also, Algeria has issued a tender to buy 50,000 tonnes of optional origin milling wheat for January shipment, traders said on Monday.
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