Argentine Woes Give U.S. Beans a Lift
Turmoil over the export tax in Argentina creates uncertainty about a key supplier.
Bryce Knorr
Published: Mar 23, 2009
The soybean market, to quote the Beatles song, is trying to get by with a little help from its friends.
The new BFF's for beans include Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Argentine President Cristina Fernández, an unlikely due if ever there was one.
Bernanke's bold move Wednesday to buy up to $300 billion in longer-term Treasury debt, send the dollar plummeting, lifting the price of most commodities as investors scrambled to hedge losses in dollar-denominated assets. Fernández continued to sound a tin ear towards farmers, who began a seven-day strike Friday that threatens to reignite export stoppages that gave U.S. sales a boost last year.
The two developments came just in the nick of time for the bean market. While USDA Friday announced the sale of 6 million bushels to China, two of those three cargoes were for new crop. In addition, the world's largest importer was mostly missing from Thursday's weekly export report, where net new bookings sunk to a marketing year low.
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