Beans Push Lower into Friday

Soybean prices are down by 2 to 3 cents in early Friday/end of year futures trading. The soy futures market turned lower through midday and stayed in the red through the afternoon. At the close the nearby contracts were a penny to 3c off their lows with 6 ½ to 11 ½ cent losses. Open interest in the January futures dropped nearly 2/3 of the total yesterday. Some moved to March futures, but OI overall was down 5,873 contracts. Soymeal futures were down by 0.6% to 1.5% across the front months on Thursday. Soy oil futures finished the day 68 to 75 points lower.   

There were 382 delivery notices vs. January soybeans overnight, with all but 1 coming from a JPM customer, and 312 being stopped by ADMIS customers. There were zero delivery notices vs. January soybean meal and soybean oil. 

CME Synthetic Soy Crush  was 81 ¾ cents for the Jan, the lowest front month margin since June. 

Traders are looking for this morning’s Export Sales report to show between 800k MT and 1.7 MMT of old crop soybeans were sold during the week that ended 12/21. Analysts expect less than 150k MT of new crop beans were sold. Meal bookings are estimated between 100k and 300k MT, while soy oil sales are expected to be below 10k MT. 

Brazil’s ANEC has Dec bean shipments totaling 3.48 MMT, a 20k MT reduction from the preliminary forecast. Expected soymeal exports were also slightly trimmed to 2.05 MMT for the month. 

Abiove adjusted their outlook on Brazil’s soy situation, including a 1.6 MMT production cut to 160.3 MMT (USDA @ 161). Expected bean exports were trimmed by 900k MT to 99.3 MMT (USDA @ 99.5), though crush was left alone at 54.5 MMT. Meal and oil production were 41.7 MMT and 11 MMT, compared to the WAOB’s Dec forecast of 43.2 MMT and 10.7 MMT respectively. 

Jan 24 Soybeans  closed at $13.05 1/4, down 11 1/2 cents, currently down 3 cents

Nearby Cash   was $12.54 5/8, down 10 1/4 cents,

Mar 24 Soybeans  closed at $13.12, down 8 1/2 cents, currently down 3 1/4 cents

May 24 Soybeans  closed at $13.21 1/2, down 8 cents, currently down 3 cents

On the date of publication, Alan Brugler did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. For more information please view the Barchart Disclosure Policy here.