Soybeans Rise by Double Digits on Monday

Soybean Market Update

Soybean prices have shown an upward trend as traders returned from a quiet holiday period, with futures closing up by 15 to 18 cents. As of Friday evening, there were 401 additional deliveries scheduled for January soybeans. The national average cash bean price, according to cmdtyView, rose by 17 1/4 cents to reach 9.87 1/4 cents. Futures for soybean meal increased by $2.20 to $4.10, and soybean oil futures saw a rise of 56 to 60 points, with 20 deliveries reported for soybean meal in January.

Export inspection data for the week ending on New Year’s Day indicated soybean shipments of 980,518 tonnes (about 51.2 megatonnes). This reflects a 24.3% increase compared to the previous week, though it’s down by 26.7% from the same week last year. China led the imports with 397,069 tons, while Egypt followed with 182,553 tons and Taiwan with 74,996 tons. Cumulatively, shipments for the commercial year reached 16.4 MMT (602.64 mbu), a substantial 45.3% drop from last year.

For the week ending December 25, export sales data showed soybean sales at 1.178 MMT, which fell within the range analysts expected (between 0.7 and 1.8 MMT). Additionally, there were 66,391 tonnes sold for the 2026/27 marketing year. Sales for the current year surpassed last week’s performance and were more than double compared to the same week in the previous year.

Meal sales were recorded at 110,642 tonnes, which is lower than the projected range of 150,000 to 500,000 tonnes. Meanwhile, soybean oil sales hit 6,238 tonnes, which aligned with expectations ranging from 0 to 20,000 tonnes.

According to the latest CFTC data, speculators have cut their net long positions in soybean futures and options by an additional 25,841 contracts for the week ending December 30, bringing the net long total to 84,562 contracts.

In other news, StoneX has revised its estimate for Brazil’s 2025/26 soybean harvest to 177.6 MMT, which is slightly up by 0.4 MMT from earlier figures.