By Michael Hirtzer
CHICAGO, Oct 28 (Reuters) – U.S. soybean futures pared gains
after rising to a nearly two-month high on Tuesday after a rally
fuelled by soaring soymeal prices sparked a round of farmer
sales and investor profit taking.
Soybean and soymeal futures each traded in both
positive and negative territory in volatile dealings at the
Chicago Board of Trade. A record-large U.S. soy harvest started
to gain steam after a slow start, replenishing supplies that had
run short at domestic processing plants.
Corn futures also trimmed earlier gains on harvest pressure
and a spike in farmer sales.
CBOT November soybeans were up 2-3/4 cents at $10.09
per bushel as of 12:08 p.m. CDT (1708 GMT) after rising as high
as $10.34-1/2. Soymeal for December delivery was up 20
cents at $377.00 per ton after jumping to $399.80.
CBOT December corn was up 1/2 cent to $3.63-1/2.
“The push above $10 (in soybeans) probably cleaned out a lot
of buy stops and now we’re coming back down,” said Mike Zuzolo,
analyst at Global Commodity Analytics. “The meal market has done
what it needs to do to ration demand and the bean market has
done what it needs to do to ration export demand.”
Zuzolo added that some U.S. processors pulled back their
bids too much during the early days of the harvest that started
in September, which allowed too many soybeans to flow into the
river market destined for export. The processors then were
squeezed by having sold soymeal but not having bought the
necessary beans to crush.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said after the market
close on Monday that the U.S. soybean harvest was 70 percent
complete, close to the five-year average of 76 percent and up
from 53 percent a week ago.
USDA said 46 percent of the crop was cut, below the average
pace of 65 percent.
“There is evidently still a bottleneck of available supply
at present, which should be dissolved soon though, making us
expect a significant fall in prices especially for soybeans,”
Commerzbank analysts said in a note.
CBOT December wheat rose 1 percent, or 6-1/2 cents, to
$5.29-1/4 a bushel, underpinned by crop concerns around the
world.
The USDA estimated the condition of winter wheat at 59
percent good-to-excellent, well below analysts’ expectations of
68 percent.
A lack of rain and early cold have left crops vulnerable in
Russia and Ukraine, while in Australia adverse weather is
expected to put the wheat harvest below the official forecast.
(Additional reporting by Gus Trompiz in Paris and Naveen
Thukral in Singapore; Editing by Himani Sarkar, Mark Potter and
James Dalgleish)