by Agrimoney.com
Friday's often bring reversals, as investors close positions and book profits ahead of the weekend.
Certainly, there were plenty of direction changes on this one, including in Tokyo equities, which added 1.9%, recovering some of their ground lost in the last session's drubbing, when they plunged more than 6%, taking them officially into bear-market territory.
Sentiment was boosted by Japanese cabinet endorsement of the latest moves in the so-called "third arrow of Abenomics", a reference to the economic strategy being pursued by Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe.
Indeed, other Asian markets rose too, with Shanghai shares adding 0.6% and Sydney stocks soaring 2.1%.
'If a market can't go up…'
Among agricultural commodities, the revival theme spread to soybeans, which defied cash market strength and firm old crop weekly US soymeal sales to close down some 2% for July delivery in the last session, unnerving some investors.
That decline was blamed largely on technical factors, after the contract failed on Wednesday to hold above the $15.50-a-bushel mark.
"If a market can't go up it will go down," was the thinking, Mike Mawdsley at Iowa-based broker Market 1 said.
Goldman Sachs added extra pressure by slashing its forecasts for soybean prices, foreseeing a potential drop below $11 a bushel for new crop.
Data ahead
Soybeans' decline continued in early deals on Friday, when Chicago's July lot fell below its 20-day moving average for the first time in more than a month.
However, it was helped to a recovery by the resilience of US cash markets, being boosted by what appear to be OK processing margins.
These will come into focus on Monday when the National Oilseed Processors Association unveils monthly US soybean crush data.
Indeed, a little uncertainty ahead of these data, and whether they might exceed market expectations of a figure in line with April's 120.1m bushels, was an extra reason for bears to tread carefully.
Dalian revival
Furthermore, Chicago soybeans got a little help from China, where Dalian futures held firm, raising doubts about just how significant is talk of Chinese cancellations of July-August soybean purchases, albeit with talk largely centring on orders from Brazil.
Dalian soybeans for January, the best-traded contract, edged 2 yuan higher to 4,687 yuan a tonne.
Soymeal - the soybean-derived feed ingredient whose performance is being viewed as an indicator of any damage to Chinese feed demand from the knock on effects on chicken demand from the bird flu epidemic - added 0.6% to 3,238 yuan a tonne for January delivery as of 09:30 UK time (03:30 Chicago time).
In Chicago, July soymeal bounced 0.8% to $456.30 a short ton, helping soybeans themselves for July gain 0.6% to $15.19 a bushel.
New crop November soybeans added 0.4% to $13.05 ¼ a bushel, helped by old crop strength, and by the prospect of short-term rains to slow the last stages of US spring plantings.
'Large-scale buying'
For wheat, there was a reversal going on too, although this meant a decline from the last session.
It is tricky for the grain to hold onto gains heading into the teeth of the northern hemisphere winter wheat harvest, which in bringing a surge in supplies will always tend to weigh on prices.
Indeed, Jonathan Watters at Benson Quinn Commodities flagged the growing premium of Minneapolis-traded spring wheat, for which sowings continue, slowly, over Kansas hard red winter wheat, for which harvest has started.
Minneapolis spring wheat was boosted in the last session by "large-scale buying".
Indeed, it saw the "largest programme it has seen in months with nearly 4,000 contracts trading in the September contract and little of it on spreads", Mr Watters said.
"At the mid-session highs of $0.78 a bushel, the intermarket spread between September contracts in Minneapolis and Kansas had gained roughly $0.28 in just seven trading sessions."
Chinese interest whetted?
In early deals on Friday, Minneapolis spring wheat for September was holding relatively firm, easing 0.1% to $7.94 ½ a bushel, while its Kansas peer dipped 0.3% to $7.21 ½ a bushel.
And this despite data overnight showing spring crop sowings in Saskatchewan, a major spring wheat province, hitting 96% as of Monday, well ahead of the average pace of 89% by then.
Still, the wheat complex got some support from the potential for Chinese buying given where Chicago futures, for July, have got to, down 0.2% at $6.84 a bushel.
"The declines of the past two sessions put Chicago wheat back into the range where China has reportedly booked significant tonnage, and the market reaction to the $6.75-6.80 a bushel range seems to indicate somebody has found value," Mr Watters said.
Furthermore, "quality issues remain a concern in soft red winter wheat-growing areas that have been inundated with moisture the entire spring".
'Rallies will be laboured'
Corn, meanwhile, eased too, with rains increasingly seen as a benefit to crops in the ground –" rain makes grain" – rather than a threat to sowings in their latter stages anyway, and for which investors have factored in a stack of abandoned acres.
"Rallies will be laboured from here without some scare to get people excited to buy corn," Market 1's Mike Mawdsley said.
And indeed, the new crop December contract eased 0.1% to $5.35 a bushel, losing more ground against the old-crop July lot which added 0.8% to $6.48 ½ a bushel, helped by firm US cash markets, seen underpinned by decent demand from ethanol plants.
Coffee cools
Among soft commodities, a rebound in New York-traded arabica coffee, after a 4% slump on Wednesday, ran into the sand as the ideas of ample supplies returned to weigh on futures.
With hopes of better production in Colombia, and ideas of decent supplies stretching long-term, as noted by Societe Generale, arabica coffee for September fell 0.4% to 123.25 cents a pound.
But raw sugar added 0.3% to 16.28 cents a pound, doing better at exploiting some revival in the Brazilian real, whose weakness has also been seen as a key factor undermining prices of New York's dollar-denominated futures.
New York cotton for July added 0.6% to 92.30 cents a pound for July, amid lingering ideas that this contract, like the July 2012 one, might be in for a short squeeze which sends prices spiking higher.
The December lot was unimpressed, adding but 0.01 cents to 89.16 cents a pound.
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