Soy futures are only fractionally lower so far, as the market recovered from initial overnight weakness. Soybean futures were 1.3% to 1.9% higher at the close on Friday. That limited the week’s loss in Nov to just 8 1/4 cents. November was back above the $14 mark, but still a 77 cent discount to Sep. Beyond Nov, there is a 2-5c carry/ contract. Soymeal futures ended Friday with $4.80 to $5.70/ton gains, limiting the week’s loss for October to $9.20/ton. BO futures were also firm on the week’s last trade day, closing 159 to 164 points higher in the front months. BO futures were still 126 points weaker from Friday to Friday. $12.20/ton so far into the weekend. BO prices are 93 to 108 points stronger.
Managed money soybean traders were closing more longs than shorts through the week of 9/6. The 7,242 contract lighter OI left the specs 2,172 contracts less net long to 99,629 contracts. Commercial bean traders lightened their net short by 5.7k contracts to 133.6k via net new buying and closing short hedges. In soymeal managed money firms were rotating existing longs to new shorts for a net 12,005 contract swing. They were still 81,621 contracts net long as of 9/6. The funds were also closing longs and adding new shorts in BO, for a 5.2k contract lighter net long of 44k contracts.
Ahead of the Sep Crop Report, survey respondents expect to see between a 0.1 bpa increase and a 1.2 bpa decrease to the national average soybean yield. The average of estimates is 51.5 bpa going in, which would be a 0.4 cut. NASS has sufficient data to include acreage survey responses from FSA in their Crop Production report essentially a month early. Traders anticipate seeing between 700k additional bean acres to 600k fewer. As for output, analysts expect on average 4.5 bbu, a 31 mbu trim from August.
USDA’s Ag Attache reduced their forecast for Chinese soybean imports, with 21/22 needs lowered to 92 MMT and 22/23 reduced to 96.5 MMT due to weaker meal and oil demand. Chinese 2022 production was trimmed to 18.1 MMT from 18.4 MMT. NASS is not required to adopt these estimates from the attaché.
CONAB sees Brazilian soybean output as 125.55 MMT for 21/22, which was up slightly from their August figure.
Sep 22 Soybeans closed at $14.89 1/4, up 18 3/4 cents, currently 16 3/4 cents
Nearby Cash was $13.81 5/8 on Friday, up 24 7/8 cents,
Nov 22 Soybeans closed at $14.12 1/4, up 26 1/4 cents, currently down 1/2 cent
Jan 23 Soybeans closed at $14.17 1/2, up 26 1/4 cents, currently down 1/2 cent
