Soybeans headed in the weekend with pressure on Friday, down 1 to 6 cents across the front months out to November. March was still up 3 ½ cents this 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. March options expired today, with a 1040 pin in soybeans.

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 this morning tallied 480,278 MT of soybeans sold during the week of 2/13, 158.9% above the previous week and well above the same week last year. China was the buyer of 101,200 MT, with 75,700 MT sold to Egypt and 73,800 MT to Mexico. 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, which was a 4-week low. Vietnam was the buyer of 177,600 MT, with 32,300 MT. Bean oil bookings were 19,408 MT, back up from the previous week’s net reduction.

Ahead of the USDA Outlook Forum next 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).

Mar 25 Soybeans  closed at $10.39 1/2, down 6 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,

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

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