Soybeans are starting off Friday in short covering mode ahead of the weekend, with prices firming up by as much as 3 cents. Front month soybean futures weakened another 8 ¼ to 14 cents on Thursday. The Nov contract remains at a 21 1/5 cent discount to the spot March contract. Soymeal futures finished the Thursday trading with $3.10 to $3.80/ton losses. Soy oil futures fell by 35 to 39 points on the day. The CME Synthetic Soy Cr ush ratio lost another 4% to 90 ½ cents/bu for spot, and to $1.08 ¼ per bushel for the new crop ratio.
Weekly Export Sales data showed 353,775 MT of soybeans were sold for 23/24 delivery and 24k MT for 24/25 delivery during the week that ended 2/8. That was at the low end of expectations and was down 5% from the same week last year. USDA had 8.4 MMT of unshipped beans on the books, which remains 28% behind last year.
NOPA members reported processing 185.78 million bushels of soybeans in January. That was a 4.1 mbu miss from the average trade guess but was still up 3.8% from Jan last year as a new record for the month. Soybean oil stocks were shown at 1.507 billion lbs, which were also above estimates and up from 1.36 billion in Dec.
The IGC has soybean ending stocks at 65 MMT from 66 MMT last month on a 1 MMT lighter global production.
The annual USDA Ag Outlook Forum included a release from the Office of the Chief Economist projecting soybean acreage at 87.5 million. That is 3.9 million above 2023 and compares to the 86.7 million acre average estimate by selected analysts taken on Monday and Tuesday. The preliminary carryout is at 435 mbu for 24/25.
Mar 24 Soybeans closed at $11.62 1/4, down by 8 1/4 cents, currently up 2 1/2 cents
May 24 Soybeans closed at $11.66, down by 10 1/4 cents, currently up 2 1/4 cents
Jul 24 Soybeans closed at $11.75 1/4, down by 11 cents, currently up 2 3/4 cents
Nov 24 Soybeans closed at $11.40 3/4, down by 14 1/4 cents, currently up 3 cents
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