As commodity prices continued the climb this week, soybean prices hit new contract highs, with old crop topping $15.
It follows corn contracts that blew past the $6 mark. May corn futures hit the highest point since July 2013. And with corn trading the limit higher on Thursday and soybeans surging double-digits, it marked the the seventh-straight day of gains for beans.
Experts say there is concern about a shortage of soybeans.
“The biggest factor quite honestly, is emotion,” says Peter Meyer, head of Grain Oilseeds Analytics, S&P Global Platts. “The other factor is that we will see no farmer selling until such time when we get a majority of the crop in the ground. So, in our opinion - and we’ve been telling our clients this for a while - we see these markets being supported until the end of May, because by the end of May last year, we had about 90% of the corn crop in the ground. And we expect that to happen. Farmers are great multitaskers, but they typically don’t market while they’re planting.”
