Soybean futures saw fractional to 2 cent gains in the front months on Thursday. Meal futures were up $2.10/ton, with soy oil 19 points lower. Wire reports are showing that US exporters sold 1.5 MMT of soybeans to China on Thursday for July/August shipment. This morning’s USDA Export Sales report indicated very weak old crop soybean bookings for the week of 3/21 at 181,781 MT, well below most estimates.

Egypt was the top buyer of 123,600 MT, with unknown showing reductions of 259,900 MT. Meal sales were reported at a total of 79,030 MT, with soy oil at 11,689 MT. The IGC raised their 18/19 soybeans world ending stocks estimate by 3 MMT to 52 MMT on slightly larger production and lower consumption than their previous numbers. Brazil’s Soybean crop protection from Agroconsult was raised by 1.6 MMT to 118 MMT. That is the highest one we are aware of.