Looking to the Futures
Soybeans continue upward momentum
Soybean futures (/ZSH26) started the year of at 1026 and made a new high for this Wednesday at 1144 before pulling back slightly.
National Oilseed Processors Association (NOPA) released their monthly crush report this morning showing a total of 221.56 mbu of soybeans crushed in January, which exceeded estimates. The report indicated that it was about 10.57% above last year, but down 1.52% from last month. Soybean oil stocks rose 15.6% over last month and 49.07% above last year, per barchart.com.
USDA released their weekly report on Tuesday the 17th showing export inspections for the week ending Feb. 12th totaling 1,202,617 metric tons, up from 727,529 metric tons from the same week one year ago. Corn inspections came in at 1,492,383 metric tons, down from 1,623,127 metric tons one year ago. Wheat inspection came in at 375,402, up from 250,829 one year ago.
WASDE report published by the USDA came out last week on February 10th, showed 2025/2026 oil seed supply and use projections remain unchanged this month. The average soybean price is projected unchanged at $10.20 per bushel. Soybean mean and oil prices are unchanged at $295 per short ton and 53 cents per pound.
On the global production side, Brazil is raised 2.0 million tons to 180.0 due to higher area and yield per acre. Paraguay is increased 0.5 million tons to 11.5 million on favorable rainfall over the season. China is reported to be considering buying more U.S. soybeans. Global soybean import demand is nearly unchanged from last month, so therefore if China bought more from the United States, global soybean exports will likely be shifted with more U.S. shipments to China and less to other markets.
Soybean acreage in the U.S. is expected in increase by nearly 6% to 86 million acres in 2026 per CoBank's knowledge exchange report. The increase is likely driven not only by price signals but also crop rotation. Corn had a big year in 2025 where acreage climbed to the highest level in decades and with record supplies of corn in storage, farmers will look to rotate into other crops to diversify risk. Although soybean acreage is expected to increase by 4.8 million in 2026, this is still down from the 87.10 million acres planted in 2024.
Technicals
Looking at the 1-year, 1-day chart on March Soybean futures (/ZSH26) we can see the strong year soybeans have had so far. The March contracts last crossed below the 200-day moving average on December 12th and hit a low the next day at 1037.75. Since then, only pulling back slightly on February 2nd, where the 200-day moving was touched. RSI has remained above the 70-line for the past 5 days, currently coming in at 70.8762. Implied volatility has pulled back to 18% after spiking to just over 40% on Tuesday the 17th.
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