Week 2, 2019 (Jan.7-Jan.11), the trend of the International Grain Future Freight (IGF) reported the Panamax forward freight rate of ECSA (East Coast of South America)-Tianjin route (soybean) from March to May in 2019 is shown in the chart below.

Although the work of Brazil’s soybean planting started earlier in this year, but the hot weather and drought since December affected the grain-filling of premature soybean, which caused the lighter weight of soybean grain and average unit yield lower than that of the same period last year, and the president of Brazilian industry group APROSOJA said that the yield of Brazilian soybean will likely fall further. The soybean planting of 2018/2019 in Argentina had been completed 96.1%, and the weather in main soybean-producing areas was still good though the excessive rainfall occurred in some areas.

In terms of the shipping market, the future freight sustained downtrend and suffered consecutive decline from Jan.7-Jan.10 (Mon.-Thur.). It eventually closed at $33.00/ton and remained flat compared with last release day, but 1.67% lower than that on Jan.4 (the last release day of Week 1).