Soyabeans snap back to near four-year peak

US soybean futures rebounded to near a four-year peak o n M onday, notching gains for the fifth straight day after an earlier retreat as traders booked profits and the market fell on larger-than-expected deliveries on first notice day.

Persistent sales of US soyabeans to China, the world's largest buyer of soya, kept a firm foundation under the soy complex with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) confirming trader rumours that China had bought another 220,000 tonnes of US soyabeans for delivery in the new-crop marketing year (2012/13).

Corn closed higher on dwindling stocks of corn, big export sales of US corn, including sales to China, and no deliveries on the spot May corn futures contract.

Monday was first notice day for deliveries on the CBOT agricultural futures contracts.

The absence of deliveries is a good indicator of strong demand for the physical product by feeders, ethanol makers and exporters.

Wheat turned up on concerns about dry weather in southern Russia and southern Ukraine winter wheat growing areas and excessive wet weather, including flooding in parts of the US Plains hard red winter wheat growing region.

CBOT May soybeans closed up 6-1/4 cents at $15.03, May corn was up 7-1/4 at $6.60-1/4 and May wheat was up 5-1/2 at $6.47-3/4.

Gains in soyabeans were slowed by larger-than-expected deliveries of 752 contracts against the May contract on first notice day.

Traders had expected there would not be any deliveries because of tight supplies.

Demand for soyabeans remains strong, analysts said.

China will likely keep buying because margins for crushing soyabeans remain good, said Jerry Gidel, analyst for Rice Dairy LLC.

Corn edged up to a three-week high, bumping against chart resistance at the 200-day moving average (May $6.61-3/4) building on a surge of 5 percent on Friday that was fueled by the largest one-day sale of US corn since 1991.

Traders said most of the corn was likely headed for China.

Tension in corn and soyabeans has been concentrated in old-crop contracts, which have established a sizable premium over new-crop prices given tight short-term stocks.