Just caught up on the soybean action from earlier this week and there's quite a bit going on. Beans were down 5 to 8 cents in the front months, though new crop showed some strength. The cash bean price dropped 2 cents to hit $10.91 1/4, while soymeal took a bigger hit losing $2.30 to $7.60. Bean oil actually moved up though, gaining 70 to 92 cents symbol worth of points thanks to crude oil catching a bid after the weekend Iran situation.

What caught my eye was the export data. Soybean shipments last week came in at 1.138 million metric tons, which was way above the prior week and up 62% year-over-year. China took the lion's share at 734,698 MT, with Germany and Mexico grabbing decent portions. But here's the thing - the marketing year total is running 30% behind last year's pace, so the strong week doesn't really change that picture.

The bigger concern seems to be Brazil. Their harvest is sitting at 39%, still lagging the 50% they had at this point last year. Both AgRural and StoneX knocked down their crop estimates by 3-4 million metric tons, which matters when you're talking about a global market. Add in the geopolitical noise around China and you've got a market that's stuck between competing signals. Prices are reflecting all that uncertainty for sure.