Chicago Board of Trade soybean futures fell on Thursday on disappointing US export sales data and technical selling, including profit-taking a day after the November contract hit a one-week high, traders said. Additional pressure from mostly favorable weather in the US Midwest as the soybean crop sets pods. USDA's weekly export sales report showed net cancellations for soybeans totaling 447,300 tonnes for 2014/15, and net sales for 2015/16 of 1.24 million tonnes.
The net 2014/15 figure included 500,000 tonnes canceled by China, the largest single-week cancellation by the top global soy buyer since July 2011, and only partly offset by net new-crop sales totaling 426,000 tonnes. With the 2015/16 marketing year less than a month away, and following record-large imports from South America this summer, Chinese buyers were believed to be rolling some of their US purchases to 2015/16, traders said.
Separately, USDA also said private exporters in the last day sold 132,000 tonnes of US soybeans to China for delivery in 2015/16. USDA reported weekly export sales of soymeal at 41,600 tonnes for 2014/15 and 18,300 tonnes for 2015/16, below trade expectations. USDA reported weekly soyoil export sales at 4,200 tonnes for 2014/15 and 6,000 tonnes for 2015/16. Soymeal closed lower in rangebound trade. Benchmark December soyoil edged higher but stayed inside the previous day's trading range. There were no deliveries against the expiring CBOT August soybean and soymeal contracts and 294 deliveries against August soyoil.