Darrel Good Larger Quotations

With the growing season coming to an end, most observers believe that the South American crop will be record large, with more uncertainty about the Argentine crop than the Brazilian crop. U.S. soybean oil stocks at the end of the most recent reporting month--January 2006--were estimated at 2.477 billion pounds, nearly 60 percent larger than stocks of a year ago. Stocks were at the highest level since August 2002.

The cut in the export projection was a bit larger than expected, but the Census Bureau export report for December, released on Feb. 10, indicated that exports are lagging last year's pace by even more than indicated by the USDA weekly export figures.

Similar to corn, USDA soybean production forecasts had the largest impact on soybean futures prices in August, with recent price reactions appearing somewhat larger than in the past.