In Brief
(Reuters) —Bunge Ltd. reported a fourth-quarter loss late last month after a truce in the U.S.-China trade war ruined the company’s bets on Brazilian soybeans, sending shares down to a three-year low.
Bunge, under pressure from weak results over the past two years, missed Wall Street forecasts for the fourth time in five quarters.
Brazilian soybean prices had swelled to a large premium to U.S. beans after China slapped steep tariffs on shipments from the U.S. in July. However, that premium narrowed after the countries declared a temporary truce in their trade war on Dec. 1. That resulted in a $125 million loss as the value of Bunge’s soybean inventory plunged.
The gaffe was at least the second major risk management blunder by Bunge, whose executives had asserted last summer that shifts in global trade flows “play to our strengths.”
