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Soybeans supported in short-term, maybe not long-term

An ag economist says a weakening South American soybean crop is driving the market following USDA’s recent supply and demand report.

The University of Missouri’s Ben Brown…

“I would expect that this actually gives a little bit of a bullish tint to the soybean market here in the short-term as the markets decompress these small global stock numbers,” Brown said.

USDA’s expectations for South American soybean production was lowered around eight million metric tons in Wednesday’s report.

But Brown said the longer-term outlook could be more bearish because of recent soybean export levels to China.

“We have seen some softness, especially in the crush margins for China and their buyers’ willingness to buy soybeans in the current market,” he said. “We could see USDA maybe start to think about making some downward revisions to U.S. soybeans, given some of the export shipments that we’ve seen here as of late.”

Brown said a downward demand revision by USDA to the world’s largest soybean buyer could come next month.