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Nelson: soybean exports not as good as reported

Allendale market analyst Rich Nelson says it’s likely the USDA will lower its U.S. soybean export total for 2017.  USDA’s soybean 2017 export goal is 2.225 billion bushels. If achieved, it’s two percent more than last year’s record.

“We do think that USDA will probably take off at least 50 million bushels on this coming January 12^th report,” Nelson told Brownfield Ag News Tuesday from his office in Chicago.  “[That’s] different than corn, where you can say that export sales will be more than offset with higher domestic usage.  We can’t say the same will be seen for soybeans.”

The domestic soybean crush figure is about as expected, said Nelson.  On the positive side, Nelson tells Brownfield, to this point USDA has been lowering soybean ending stocks numbers.

“While we are still at a higher stocks-to-use [ratio], and we’d suggest maybe a $9.70 price here for nearby futures, different than corn, we can’t say that this number’s going to change too much,” said Nelson.

South American weather, said Nelson, will remain a soybean futures market factor through January.

AUDIO: Rich Nelson (3 min. MP3)