(Reuters) – U.S. soymeal rose for a third consecutive session on Friday to trade around a one-week high as strong exports continued to buoy the market that saw a 30 percent jump in October.
Corn and wheat futures edged lower as ample global supplies weighed on grain markets.
Chicago Board of Trade spot-month soymeal gained 0.7 percent to $394.4 a short ton by 0307 GMT, adding to Thursday’s 4.4 percent rally.
Soybeans rose 0.3 percent to $10.31-1/2 a bushel, corn was down 0.3 percent to $3.70 a bushel and wheat slid 0.4 percent to $5.18 a bushel.
“Strong demand is certainly supporting soymeal,” said Simon Clancy, a director at IKON Commodities in Sydney.
Strong U.S. soymeal export data has stoked hopes that end users will be scrambling for supplies in the coming months even with a record soybean harvest.
Soymeal is up about 1.6 percent this week, its fifth consecutive weekly gain, while soybeans are down 1.6 percent on profit-taking after October’s rally.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said on Thursday exporters shipped out 307,600 tonnes of soymeal in the latest week, more than double the 150,600 tonnes of a week earlier.
The agency also said weekly soybean export sales were 1.610 million tonnes, above the high end of forecasts ranging from 900,000 to 1.1 million tonnes.
Brisk exports have helped soybean prices recover over the past month, reflecting strong demand from top importer China.
China’s monthly soybean imports are expected to jump around 38 percent in November as buyers there, spurred by improving crush margins, race to secure cheap supplies from the U.S. harvest.
Corn has given up about 1.9 percent this week, taking a breather after five weeks of gains. Wheat is down about 2.7 percent, also after five consecutive weeks of rises.
“For corn there is less concern about weather holdups, we are seeing better harvest activity. Wheat is certainly reacting to a glut of global supply,” said Clancy of IKON Commodities.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation has forecast record world production of wheat and corn this year, despite trimming overall cereals output and stocks forecasts.
Warm weather last week did not eliminate risks for Russia’s fragile winter grain plantings, said a Moscow-based agriculture consultancy SovEcon, warning of a potential export decline next year from one of the world’s key suppliers.
And the U.S. weather forecaster on Thursday projected a 58 percent chance of El Nino developing during the Northern Hemisphere winter, reducing its outlook for the likelihood of the weather phenomenon in its monthly report.
