The US Department of Agriculture's US soybean ending stocks forecast for 2020-21 marketing year (September-August) was held steady on February estimates at 120 million bushels, the World Agriculture Supply and Demand Estimate report released March 9 showed.
The forecast was unchanged on stable exports and crushing projections, according to the report.
The USDA projected US soybeans exports for 2020-21 to reach 2.25 billion bushels, unchanged on February estimates. Soybean crush remained unchanged on the month at 2.2 billion bushel, the USDA said.
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The latest US soybean ending stocks forecast was 3 million bushels higher than the average analyst estimate at 117 million bushels, but in line with S&P Global Platts Analytics forecast of 120 million bushels.
The USDA kept rest of the parameters unchanged month on month.
Area harvested and soybeans production forecast were kept steady at 82.3 million acres and 4.135 billion bushels, respectively, according to the report.
The 2020-21 US season-average soybean price was projected at $11.15/bu, unchanged on February forecast, the USDA said. The soybean meal price was also held steady at $400/st. However, soybean oil price forecast was up 1 cent from the previous estimate at 41 cents/lb.
Global
The US soybean futures prices shed 8 cents/bu immediately after the release of the WASDE report to $14.2512/bu at 1718 GMT March 9, as USDA's projection for Brazilian soybean output was revised high by 1 million mt on higher yield trend to a record 134 million mt, which surprised the market analysts.
Analysts were expecting a slight increase of only 0.09 million mt in Brazilian soybean production forecast for 2020-21 to 133.09 million mt, due to delayed planting and uneven rainfall during the fourth quarter of 2020.
Conversely, Argentina's soybean production was reduced 0.5 million mt to 47.5 million mt due to dry weather conditions over the past month, the USDA said.
