Beans firmed up with 7 ¼ to 10 ¼ cent gains going into the three-day weekend. Futures were still down by 11 ¼ cents for the week’s move. Soymeal futures also firmed up, closing Friday $5.40 to $6.10 stronger. Soy oil futures closed the day with 41 to 48 point losses, leading the March contract to a net 167 point loss for the week.
The weekly CoT data showed managed money spec traders were adding positions in beans during the week that ended 2/13. The new selling offset the new buyers by 4.2k contracts on a 13.6k contract OI boost. That pushed the group’s net short to 134,500 contracts. The commercial bean hedgers were reduced their net long by 2.8k contracts to 35,918 contracts during the week. CFTC had spec traders extending their net short in soymeal via net new selling, now to 27,592 contracts. The funds were closing shorts and adding new longs in soybean oil during the week that ended 2/13, that left them on an 8.8k contract weaker net short of 35,440 contracts.
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.
Mar 24 Soybeans closed at $11.72 1/4, up by 10 cents,
May 24 Soybeans closed at $11.76 1/4, up by 10 1/4 cents,
Jul 24 Soybeans closed at $11.84 3/4, up by 9 1/2 cents,
Nov 24 Soybeans closed at $11.48 1/2, up by 7 3/4 cents,
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