Soy Recovers on Friday

The domestic soy futures market closed mostly higher on Friday. Beans ended 9 1/4 to 11 1/2 cents higher on the day, completing the week with a 5.68% gain for March. Soymeal futures added another $6.60 to $6.80/ton to the upside on Friday. For March meal, that ended the week with a 7.95% gain. Soybean oil futures were only 0.14% higher from Friday to Friday, limited in part by Friday’s 30 to 39 point pullback. 

CFTC data reported soybean spec traders at 154,488 contracts net long as of 2/1. That net new buying interest was a 39,593 contract net long increase wk/wk, to a 38-week high of 154,488 contracts. Commercial soybean traders added 76,707 contracts of short hedges expanding their net short by 33,573 contracts. That was their strongest net short since Feb 9th of 2021. 

The weekly CoT report also had managed money soymeal traders at 76,743 contracts net long as of the settle on 2/1. That was a 12,409 contract boost. In soybean oil managed money firms extended their net long by 11,703 contracts to 80,427. 

Going into the Feb WASDE report, analysts surveyed are estimating the U.S. soybean carryout at 315.7 mbu on average. That would be a 34.3 mbu drop from the Jan figure if realized. For South American output the trade is looking for USDA to cut between 1.5 MMT and 12.5 MTM from Brazil’s output and 0.5 to 4 MMT from Argentina. The average estimate is to see 133.5 MMT for Brazil and 443 MMT for Argentina. 

The Buenos Aires Grains Exchange reported their new estimate at 42 MMT for 21/22 soybean production. 

USDA announced a large private export sale this morning as unknown destinations bought 295k MT of soybeans. The sale was to be split 252k MT of old crop, with the remaining 43k MT for 22/23 delivery. 

Mar 22 Soybeans  closed at $15.53 1/2, up 9 1/4 cents,

Nearby Cash   was $15.07 3/8, up 9 1/8 cents,

May 22 Soybeans  closed at $15.57 1/2, up 10 1/2 cents,

Nov 22 Soybeans  closed at $13.95 3/4, up 3 cents,

New Crop Cash   was $13.44 5/8, up 3 7/8 cents,