By Lisa Kallal –
CHICAGO (Dow Jones)–Traders on the Chicago Board of Trade floor found
Thursday’s U.S. Department of Agriculture data to be bullish for soybean
futures, but bearish corn and wheat.
Traders called CBOT soybean futures mostly up 10-20 cents per bushel,
after seeing a much lower-than-expected U.S. 2004-05 soybean crop. “If everyone believes that figure, soybeans could be as much as 30 cents higher,”
said one CBOT trader. But on the other end of the spectrum, corn and wheat futures were called to open mostly 3-5 cents lower based on larger crops.
The U.S. corn crop came in well above analyst estimates at 10.923 billion
bushels, but traders said the trading pit had already been dialing in the
potential to see an 11-billion bushel crop.
The U.S. wheat crop came in above all trade expectations and in addition
world wheat carryout was boosted by a whopping 10 million metric tons.
SOYBEANS
There were a multitude of traders exclaiming “whoa” as they watched USDA
soybean data scrolled across newscreens early Thursday.
The U.S. soybean crop of 2.877 billion bushels came in below all trade
expectations and well below the average trade guess of 2.965 billion. This led to a drop in 2004-05 carryout to 190 million bushels from the July estimate of 210 million. “And we just finished beating up this market,” said one trader, pointing
to Wednesday’s fall to the market’s lowest level since October 2003.
A few traders warned that world soybean carryout was raised to 50.2
million tons, up from the 47.0 million forecast in the July report. Still
other traders said the bulk of this increase was for production in
countries where harvest won’t begin for at least another six months.
Source: Agriculture Online
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