CHICAGO: Chicago Board of Trade soybean futures fell 1 percent Thursday, as positioning ahead of the release on Friday of US Agriculture Department's March plantings and quarterly stocks reports dominated trading.
* Traders noted a wave of long liquidation as investors sought to close out positions ahead of the report.
* Prices for the benchmark May soybean contract, which have dropped for three straight days, fell through the 10-day moving average during the session but found support at the 20-day moving average.
* Morgan Stanley closed its recommendation to hold a long position in November soybeans on worries that a bearish surprise in USDA report could trigger a sharp sell-off.
* The December corn/November soybean ratio closed at 2.49, just below the benchmark 2.5 level that may prompt farmers to switch some intended area to soybeans away from corn.
* An average of 25 analysts' polled by Reuters pegged 2012 US soybean plantings at 75.393 million acres, above last year's 74.976 million. An average of 17 analysts' pegged the US soybean stocks on March 1 at 1.387 billion bushels, above the year ago tally of 1.249 billion.
* Private exporters reported the sale of 120,000 tonnes of US soybeans to China for delivery during the 2011/12 marketing year - USDA
* USDA's weekly export sales report on Thursday showed net export sales of US soybeans last week at 592,300 tonnes, within estimates for 500,000 to 750,000 tonnes.
* Light rainfall and warm temperatures are expected to continue blanketing the US Midwest and Plains grain and soybean growing areas for the next week to 10-days which will boost prospects for the 2012 crop production.
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