Beans Get Bearish on China Cancellations
Nov 16, 2012
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Beans were down 20 cents in the overnight session following an announcement that China had cancelled 600,000 tonnes of export bookings from the United States. Poor crush margins in China are forcing their domestic crush industry to idle some production capacity, with reports suggesting some plants are running at 50% of their normal capacity.
Soybean futures are off 20 cents this morning, with the benchmark January 13 contracts trading around $13.80 printing their lowest level in over 4 months. Critical support sits around $13.70 which would test the long-term uptrend that has been intact for over a year.
Adding fuel to the fire, Argentina gave their first soybean area estimate of the 2012/13 season. The Agriculture Ministry said 19.4 million hectares will be sown in the weeks ahead versus 18.7 million hectares in 2011/12. However, this is below the 12% expected acreage increase that USDA has pegged in their latest WASDE report.
In the corn market, new was mostly quiet overnight but prices slipped 5 cents lower following beans. High corn prices are finally starting to show a reduction in key livestock numbers, with weekly broiler chick placements showing a 3% drop in placements.
Wheat markets were 3 to 4 lower in quiet trade. News out of the EU showed strong export business, with the EU announcing weekly export licenses of 696,000 tonnes of Soft Wheat bringing their total to the year of 6.5 MMT.
