Chicago Board of Trade December soybean futures saw choppy action Thursday as ongoing fundamental drivers battled new US exports data.
Initially, prices rose as much as 12 cents/bushel above Wednesday's close to $14.5825/bushel in early action before easing back. At 12:10 p.m. (1710 GMT), December futures were trading at $14.5650/bushel, up 0.25 cent/bushel.
Chinese import levels and weather in South America initially won out, but the US Department of Agriculture's latest weekly export report gradually hauled prices back. That data showed a 220,274 mt, or 40.8%, drop in current marketing year net export sales to 319,140 mt for the reporting week that ended November 22. There were no weekly net export sales reported for the next marketing year for the second straight week.
The current marketing year for US soybeans ends August 31, 2013, while the next marketing year begins September 1, 2013, and lasts through August 31, 2014.
The top buyers of US current marketing year soybeans were China (212,500 mt), Spain (82,368 mt), the European Union (66,142 mt), Mexico (22,840 mt) and Vietnam (15,599 mt).
There were current marketing year soybean net export sale cancellations of 16,266 mt from France, 1,624 mt from Canada and 53,500 mt from unknown destinations in the most recent week.
Weekly physical exports for soybeans dropped 618,202 mt, or 31.3%, to 1,354,063 mt after hitting their highest levels since December 2009 in the previous week.
The top weekly physical soybean export destinations were China at 965,191 mt, the European Union at 116,142 mt, Japan at 81,424 mt, Spain at 72,368 mt and Egypt at 64,200 mt. Net sales are considered a more appropriate indicator for the strength of the soybean market.
The difference between weekly net export sales and weekly exports is timing, with the agricultural products first bought -- the weekly net export sales figure -- and then physically exported, the weekly physical export figure.