The soybean market is extending weaker trade into Monday, with contracts down 2 to 3 cents early on. Soybeans headed into the weekend with losses on Friday, down 1 to 6 cents across the front months through November. March was still up 3 ½ cents on the week. The cmdtyView national front month Cash Bean price was 4 ½ cents lower at $9.81 3/4. Soymeal futures closed down $1.40/ton on the day, with Soy Oil futures back down 41 points. 

Soybean specs continued to peel back from their fresh net long position in the week ending on 2/18, down 11,949 contracts. That took the net long to just 16,526 contracts of futures and options according to Friday’s Commitment of Traders report. 

Export Sales from Friday tallied 480,278 MT of soybeans sold during the week of February 13. Commitments for the 2024/25 crop are now 43.736 MMT, which is 88% of USDA’s projected export total and matching the 5-year average pace. Sales for new crop were just 19,342 MT, split between Mexico and Japan. 

Soybean meal bookings totaled 316,907 MT in that week, with bean oil bookings at 19,408 MT.

Ahead of the USDA Outlook Forum this week, a Bloomberg survey of analysts expect to see a total of 84.4 million soybean planted acres. That would be down 2.7 million from last year’s total as all surveyed expect to see lower totals (83.1-86.5 million acres).

AgRural estimates the Brazilian soybean crop at 39% harvested and just 1 percentage point back of the same harvest pace last year. They also trimmed back the country’s soybean production estimate by 2.8 MMT to 168.2 MMT.

Mar 25 Soybeans  closed at $10.39 1/2, down 6 cents, currently down 2 3/4 cents

Nearby Cash  was $9.81 3/4, down 4 1/2 cents,

May 25 Soybeans  closed at $10.57 1/4, down 5 3/4 cents, currently down 2 3/4 cents

Nov 25 Soybeans  closed at $10.59 3/4, down 1 1/2 cents, currently down 2 3/4 cents

New Crop Cash  was $9.96 1/1, down 1 1/2 cents,