Commitment of Traders (COT) data showed that in the week ending December 16, managed money reduced another 32,560 contracts from its net long position, bringing the net long down to 147,778 contracts.

According to the USDA’s second Export Sales report released this week, soybean sales for the week ending December 11 totaled 2.396 MMT, within trade estimates of 1.8–2.9 MMT. This marked the highest level of the current marketing year and the largest weekly total in more than a year, 68.3% higher than the same week last year. China purchased 1.38 MMT during the week, with total known sales to China reaching 6.2 MMT when including daily sales from the past couple of weeks.

Soymeal sales came in at 616,453 MT, exceeding the trade estimate range of 275,000–550,000 MT. Soybean oil sales totaled 8,660 MT, near the lower end of the estimated range of 5,000–24,000 MT.