Looking to the Futures

The 2025/26 soybean harvest has started without any purchases from the United States largest soybean purchaser, China. Soybean futures for November, /ZSX25, settled at 1037.5 cents per bushel, down 6.25 from previous settlement. 
 

Trade talks between China and the US continue to move forward, with updates from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent nearing a possible deal. Secretary Bessent has given updates to chips, Tik Tok, and Russian oil purchase, but appears to be neglecting any talks about China’s lack of purchases of US soybeans in the 2025/26 harvest. 
 

Last harvest season, China purchased $12.64 billion of the US soybean crop, which was valued at $62.1 billion, of which, $24.47 billion was exported. For the 2025/26 harvest, China has not logged a single soybean purchase from the US, opting to instead order from Brazil and Argentina. This is a direct consequence of President Trumps tariff policy. 
 

The US losing a buyer that has historically bought 20% of a harvest will affect more than just farmers. Shipping and freight companies that rely on agricultural exports would also feel this impact as the product has nowhere to go. Worst-case would-be farmers leaving soybeans in storage longer, in hopes of selling later. This would fill up storage capacity quickly and could result in a negative soybean price as seen in oil in 2020. It will take a lot to get to that point as total US grain storage capacity was 25.48 billion bushels at the end of 2024.
 

China is still the world's largest soybean importer, typically buying more than 60% of the world's traded soybeans each year. While the US, Brazil, and Argentina dominate the global export market, Brazil has increasingly taken the lead in meeting Chinese demand, particularly during the early months of the calendar year when it's harvest becomes available.
 

President Trump is expected to have a phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping tomorrow, which may help with speeding talks along. 
 

The September WASDE report projects US soybean production at 4.3 billion bushels, at 53.5 bushels per acre with a harvest area of 80.3 million acres. Exports were cut by 20 million bushels on competition from Russia, Canada, and Argentina. Domestic crush forecast rose to 15 million bushels to 2,555 million bushels from the August report. 
 

Soybean crop progress reports 41% of the harvest had begun  dropping leaves, which is in-line with last year’s crop progress for the same week. 5% of the crops have been harvested and 63% was reported as good to excellent.

Soybean futures for November, /ZSX25, settled at 1037.5 cents per bushel, down 6.25 from previous settlement.
 

Soybean price action is currently moving along the 50- and 200-day simple moving averages, closing slightly above the 200-day. Soybeans are trying to find a direction in this market with supply and demand uncertainty weighing on the traders. The 50-day SMA is at 1025.73 and the 200-day SMA is at 1037.08. The 50-day SMA being below the 200-day is typically considered bearish. 
 

The 14-day RSI is at 50.813% and appears to be moving with price action as it attempts to determine trend. 
 

The directional movement index is indicating weaking bullish trend. The ADX (white) is low and moving lower. The positive directional index (green) is elevated above the negative directional index (red) but moving lower, and the negative directional index is low but beginning to move higher.

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