Soybean March 2012 Delivery Gain, Corn March 2012 Delivery Rose

Soybeans commodity for March delivery gained 2.4 percent to $11.8575 a bushel at 9:56 a.m. London time on the Chicago Board of Trade, the first gain since Jan. 9. The most-active contract dropped 3.2 percent last week.

Corn for March delivery rose 1.9 percent to $6.1075 a bushel after slumping 6.8 percent last week. A close at that price would be the biggest gain since Dec. 27. Trading in Chicago was closed yesterday for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in the U.S.

Soybeans and corn advanced for the first time in a week on speculation that China will ease monetary policy after the economy expanded at its slowest pace in 10 quarters, potentially boosting demand for raw materials.

China’s gross domestic product rose 8.9 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, the statistics bureau said today. China may ease lending curbs and increase spending to bolster the world’s second-biggest economy, boosting demand for grains and oilseeds, said Gary Mead, an analyst at VM Group.

“This must be a reaction to China’s GDP being about what people thought it would be,” Mead said by phone from London today. “China’s tight monetary policy might be eased and therefore Chinese demand will begin to rise.”

Prices also gained as drought caused by La Nina persists in South America, threatening to curb global supply further.

Corn and soybean crops in Brazil’s southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul will be harmed by more dry weather in the next 10 days, weather forecaster Somar Meteorologia said yesterday. In Argentina, the second-largest corn shipper, a heat-wave was forecast over the next two weeks and little rain was expected, said Maximiliano Zavala, a forecaster at the Buenos Aires Cereals Exchange.

Corn output in Argentina will probably drop to 21.4 million metric tons in the current growing season, “significantly” lower than expected, after dry weather damaged the crop, the Rosario Cereals Exchange said Jan. 13. That’s about a third less than the 30 million tons expected by Argentine corn group Maizar in November, before the drought began.

“There’s a question over the size of the South American crop,” Mead said. “It’s still early and it’s not ruined but some damage will be done.”

Category: Corn, corn commodity, corn prices 2012, Soybean, soybean commodity, soybean march delivery, soybean prices 2012