Soy Futures Close Mostly Red

The old crop soybean quotes were fractionally higher on Thursday, while the rest of the soy complex was red. New crop soybeans ended the day 3 1/4 to 5 1/4 cents weaker. Meal futures were down by $0.30 to $0.70/ton. Soybean oil closed 10 to 16 points lower. 

Weekly Export Sales data from USDA showed 289,730 MT of old crop beans were booked during the week that ended 4/27. That was a decrease from 311k MT sold last week and included a 128k MT sale to Germany. The week’s new crop business was reported at 67k MT, led by China, which set the total forward book at 1.837 MMT. That figure is way down from 11.226 MMT last year; as only 2019 and 2020 were lower at this time through the past decade. 

FAS data showed 179,584 MT of soymeal was sold for 22/23 delivery. That was a 17% increase for the week, but was down 27% from the same week last year. Accumulated soymeal commitments were at 9.743 MMT as of 4/27. Soybean oil sales were 14,017 MT and near the top end of expectations. That was a 4-week high led by sales to Mexico. USDA also reported a MY high for weekly oil exports at 20,609 MT. 

The monthly release from Census confirmed 115.22 mbu of soybeans were shipped during March which brought the full year total to 1.725 billion. That was 86% of the USDA forecast. March meal export shipments were 1.336 MMT, a 44% increase from Feb and a 23% increase from March ’22. Census confirmed 5,087 MT of bean oil exports in March. The full year total reached 61.4k MT, or just 27% of the April WASDE forecast. 

May 23 Soybeans  closed at $14.48 1/2, up 1/2 cent,

Nearby Cash   was $14.01 3/8, down 1/8 cent,

Jul 23 Soybeans  closed at $14.17 3/4, up 1/4 cent,

Nov 23 Soybeans  closed at $12.68 1/2, down 3 3/4 cents,