CBOT contracts on 5,000 bushels of number 2 yellow soybeans, the anchor of the crush complex and the most China-sensitive US agricultural market.
Soybeans are grown for their products rather than consumed whole: crushing yields soybean-meal-futures for animal feed and soybean-oil-futures for food and biodiesel. The board crush-spread links all three.
China buys the majority of globally traded soybeans, so trade policy and Chinese demand dominate price. The South American harvest in February and March competes directly with US supply, making the northern hemisphere new-crop November contract a battleground.
Example: beans at 1050'0 are $10.50 x 5,000 = $52,500 per contract, the largest notional in the grain complex. A 70-cent daily limit is $3,500 per contract.
Original diagrams for the ideas on this page. Illustrative, not real market data.
The bid-ask spread. Buy orders sit below, sell orders above, and the gap between the best bid (50.01) and best ask (50.04) is the spread you pay to cross. Bar length shows the size resting at each price.
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