Soybeans were higher on technical and commercial buying, along with spillover from the outside markets. Contracts continued to rally from the recent lows thanks to the bullish long term fundamental outlook. Still, traders did take some profits near the end of the day and Taiwan bought 60,000 tons of beans from Brazil after tendering for 180,000 tons from either Brazil or the U.S. Soybean meal was mixed, settling near the day’s lows as beans pulled back, and oil was up with additional support from the strength in crude oil.

Corn was mixed in consolidation trade. End user demand continues to be a big factor as the trade watches harvest activity and yield ahead of next week’s USDA numbers. However, weekly export numbers were bearish, limiting gains, and when beans moved down from the highs, corn followed. Ethanol futures were higher.

The wheat complex was lower on profit taking and technical selling. Japan bought U.S. wheat, but it was a small amount, and the weekly export numbers were bearish. Tokyo picked up a total of 120,778 tons (36,302 tons U.S. hard red winter, 28,597 tons Australian standard white, 28,140 tons U.S. dark northern spring, and 27,739 tons Canadian western red spring) with the U.S. portion shipping between November 21 and December 20. Still, there are continued concerns about the global supply with lowered expectations in Australia and Canada. The New South Wales Department of Primary Industries expects that state’s wheat crop to be down 6.4% on the year at 6.88 million tons and Statistics Canada sees the total wheat crop at 26.733 million tons, down from the previous estimate. European wheat was higher on technical buying and a solid week to week increase in E.U. soft wheat export licenses. Dow Jones Newswires reports Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has announced grain intervention sales to lessen domestic price increases with the Russian Grain Union adding grain exports since the start of the marketing year July 1 are 7.5 million tons out of an expected total of 10 million to 14 million tons.