The front month soybean futures gained 2 1/2 to 4 1/2 cents on Monday. August soybeans closed UNCH at $8.97 1/2 per bushel, which is still a 4 1/2 cent premium to Sept. Preliminary OI as of Friday was just 2,250 contracts for the in delivery Aug beans. The bid/ask spreads were as wide as 2 cents at times today due to that lack of liquidity. The products were mixed with $1.80 to $2.20/ton drops in meal and 64 to 76 point gains in soy oil. Private exporters reported a large soybean sale of 260,000 MT to unknown, 97% of which was new crop. In tonight’s weekly Crop Progress update, 85% of new crop beans were blooming and 59% were setting pods. That is 3% and 5% ahead of average respectively. Conditions improved 1% to 73% good/ex with a 1 point bump to 381 on the Brugler500. USDA’s Fats & Oils report had June crush about 500k bushels below expectations as 177.26 mbu were processed. That was down 1% month to month, but 12.5% above June ’19. Soy oil stocks were tighter than expected with 2.271 billion lbs. USDA’s Export Inspections report showed 20.266 mbu of beans were shipped on the week ending July 30, up 17% wk/wk but down 47% yr/yr. MYTD soybean exports via weekly data is 89.4% of USDA’s forecast, at 1.447 bbu shipped. Brazil exported 10.37 MMT of soybeans in July, according to gov’t data. That compares to 7.44 MMT from July ’19.

--- provided by Brugler Marketing & Management