BLBG:Soybeans Advance as 16% Slump From Record Attracts Importers
Soybeans gained as a 16 percent slide from last month’s record to a three-month low yesterday probably attracted importers on concern the worst U.S. drought in half a century will cut its reserves to the lowest level in nine years.
The November-delivery contract rose as much as 0.7 percent to $15.425 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade and was at $15.38 at 1:37 p.m. Singapore time. Futures, that surged to an all-time high of $17.89 a bushel on Sept. 4, fell yesterday to as low as to $15.04, the cheapest price since July 5.
U.S. exporters sold 21,000 metric tons of soybean oil to China, the Department of Agriculture said yesterday, after reporting sales of 180,000 tons of soybeans on Sept. 28 and 110,000 tons of the oilseed on Sept. 27. Taiwan bought 60,000 tons of Brazilian soybeans from Bunge Ltd. for delivery in February at a tender today, the Breakfast Soybean Procurement Association-Taichung Group said in an e-mail.
“Any fall in prices usually does bring out some opportunistic buyers,” Michael Creed, an agribusiness economist at National Australia Bank Ltd., said by phone from Melbourne today. “Any news out of China tends to be closely watched.”
Inventories of soybeans in the U.S., the largest grower last year, were estimated to drop to 3.13 million tons by August 2013, the smallest since 2004, according to the USDA outlook on Sept. 12.
Corn for December delivery fell 0.2 percent to $7.555 a bushel, while wheat for delivery in the same month lost 0.6 percent to $8.675 a bushel.
U.S. production of ethanol, which can be made from corn, fell 3 percent last week to 785,000 barrels a day, the least since the Energy Department began publishing weekly data in 2010.
To contact the reporter on this story: Luzi Ann Javier in Singapore at ljavier@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Poole at jpoole4@bloomberg.net
