Palm Oil Prices Strengthening Relative to Soya & Sun Oils

摘要

Soybean and meal futures declined sizably on the CBOT during the week in review on heavy fund selling. This was an overdue correction and mainly in the old-crop contracts. The price decline was triggered by the arrival of very beneficial rainhfall in many drought-stricken areas in Argentina. This will greatly benefit soybean crop development but could be too late for several sunflower fields. However, with Argentine soybeans entering critical stages of development in coming weeks, good rains are also required in February. We have made a downward revision in our Argentine soybean crop estimate to 54.0 Mn T, which is still up pronouncedly from last year's 48.5 Mn T.