SOYBEAN futures at the Chicago Board of Trade were stronger on Friday, underpinned by solid crush margins and pre-weekend positioning. Adjustments to the soyoil/meal spread favoured meal, with soyoil futures posting losses.
- Soymeal received a boost from news of private export sales of 100,000 tonnes of U.S. soymeal to Italy.
- The tenuous ceasefire in the Middle East kept some caution in the futures, with peace talks between Iran and the United States scheduled to start Saturday.
- The U.S. Department of Agriculture released updated supply/demand estimates on Thursday, leaving its U.S. soybean ending stocks projection for 2025-26 at 350 million bushels, after lowering exports by 35 million bushels and raising domestic usage by the same amount.
- The USDA’s attaché in Buenos Aires forecast Argentina’s upcoming 2026-27 soybean crop at 49 million tonnes, which would be up by a million tonnes from the current marketing year.
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CORN futures were weaker Friday, as large supplies continued to overhang the market.
- U.S. corn ending stocks for 2025-26 were unchanged at 2.127 billion bushels, which compares with 1.551 billion the previous year. The world corn carryout was up by 2.06 million tonnes from the April estimate at 294.81 million tonnes.
- The need to keep some premiums in the market to encourage corn area given the high fertilizer costs was somewhat supportive.
- The USDA reported flash sales of 125,640 tonnes of corn to unknown destinations Friday morning.
WHEAT futures managed to uncover some support after falling to fresh four-month lows in early activity, settling narrowly mixed as traders squared positions ahead of the weekend.
- Forecasts calling for rains in parts of the U.S. Plains should alleviate dryness concerns where the precipitation falls. However, drought has already cut into yield prospects in some areas.
- Projected world wheat ending stocks for 2025-26 were raised to 282.12 million tonnes from 276.96 million tonnes in March. Larger crops in Europe, Russia and India were behind the revision that topped trade expectations.
