(Bloomberg) – Soybeans advanced for the first time in four days as the slump to a three-month low last week after the discovery of a new bird flu strain in China lured buyers. Corn increased.
The contract for May delivery added as much as 1.2 percent to $13.785 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade and was at $13.7575 at 2:04 p.m. in Singapore on volume that was almost double the 100-day average.
Prices fell to $13.545 on April 5, the cheapest since Jan. 11, as officials in Shanghai shut a live-poultry trading area and began culling birds after the H7N9 strain of avian influenza was detected in pigeon samples. Two more Chinese cities slaughtered poultry after residents were infected by the virus, Xinhua News Agency reported over the weekend. China said yesterday it’s confident of dealing with the new strain.
“These fears are overdone,” Luke Mathews, a commodity strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, wrote in a report today. Corn for May delivery gained as much as 0.8 percent to $6.34 a bushel in Chicago before trading at $6.335.
