Thursday, 26 March 2015 01:51
CHICAGO: US soybean futures fell on Wednesday, pressured by technical sales, huge South American supplies and position squaring ahead of the US Agriculture Department’s report on planting next week, traders said.
Soymeal and soyoil prices also closed lower, but the drop in soyoil was kept in check by a rally in crude oil futures.
Soybean prices firmed early in the session but turned lower after the benchmark CBOT May soybean futures contract failed to hold technical support above its 20-day moving average.
Analysts were expecting the USDA report next week to show that US farmers plan to plant 85.919 million acres of soybeans this spring, up from 83.701 million a year ago.
Agroconsult raised its estimate of the 2014/15 soybean crop in Brazil to 95.8 million tonnes from 94.7 million.
Analysts also forecast weekly export sales of old-crop soybeans in a range from 100,000 to 300,000 tonnes compared to 341,961 a week ago. USDA will release its weekly export sales report on Thursday morning.
Copyright Reuters, 2015
