Soyabean futures at the Chicago Board of Trade rallied on Friday, reaching the highs late when the entire complex soared on a spurt of speculative buying, traders said. "There's probably a lot of stops that were triggered when it went through the highs of the last few days.
The strength relative to the other markets really stands out," said Mario Ballot, an analyst with Citicorp. Crop worries amid dryness in the eastern US Midwest, overnight strength in palm oil, and an 11-year high in wheat this week contributed to the strength in the soya complex.
"The push in wheat to this value sends a signal to soyabeans we have to keep pace and we have try to buy more acres around the world," said Don Rose, analyst with US Commodities in West Des Moines, Iowa. July soyabeans ended 19-3/4 cents firmer at $8.47-1/4 per bushel, nearing on Monday's high of $8.48-3/4. The back months settled 4-1/2 to 19-3/4 cents up, with several contracts making fresh highs.
July soyabean oil ended 0.72 cent per lb. higher at 35.88 cents, with the defenders up 0.59 to 0.76 cent. Soyameal followed along, ending $2 to $5.40 per ton, with July $5 higher at $235.40. Volume was large. In soyabeans, an estimated 164,010 futures and 59,598 options traded. Soyaoil trade was seen at 56,577 futures and 3,873 options.
Estimated soyameal volume was 48,025 futures and 3,682 options. Commodity funds bought 9,000 soyabean contracts, 3,000 soyameal and 4,000 soyaoil, traders said. Soyabeans and soyabean oil have been tracking the moves in volatile Asian palm oil markets, which have rallied to mullet-year highs this month amid good demand for edible oils.
Some expected the government to lower its corn and soyabean ratings by 2 to 4 percentage points in the good-to-excellent category on Monday's weekly crop progress report. Memphis-based consulting firm Informal Economics on Friday issued its latest US soya acreage estimate at 68.770 million, trade sources said.
That was above the government's current forecast of 67.1 million acres, but there was little market reaction to the number as traders are focused on crop weather. The US Agriculture Department will issue its next planting acreage number on June 29.