November soybeans were 15 1/2 cents higher overnight. Malaysia palm oil was slightly lower overnight. Crude oil was mixed in a narrow range overnight while the dollar was lower.

Soybeans broke sharply again yesterday and finished near the lows of the day. Traders credit the break to a weekend of favorable weather in the US with forecasts of more of the same through next weekend or longer. The markets traded higher overnight, holding yesterday's lows in the November contract and finishing near the highs. Meal and oil were also higher. The weekly crop conditions report showed a slight improvement to the overall soybean crop as expected. Soybeans were rated 61% good/excellent compared to 59% last week and 61% last year. The 10 year average for this time of year is 60%. Blooming stands at 45% compared to 26% last week, 70% last year and a 5-year average of 65%. Another disappointing session in Malaysia today saw an early modest rally end with a lower close. Indonesia has lowered its export tax from 20% in July to 15% in August which is thought to have weighed on the market since this lowers the effective price of Indonesian palm oil on the world market. Palm is already at a historic discount to soybean oil and new demand for edible oils is likely to shift to palm oil first. A surge in oilseed plantings for this year from Canada, India and others has helped ease tightness concerns. Russia sunflower plantings were up 16.8% from last year. Canadian canola futures hit a new two-month low yesterday. Planted area in Canada is at 15.812 million acres, up 7.4% from last year's record. In an effort to keep inflation down, China has bought near 400,000 tonnes of soyoil and near 1 million tonnes of soybeans for their reserve and this news helped pressure oils in the past few days in China.

A cool front pushed southward into the northern Midwest over the past 24 hours and this in turn has pushed the latest band of rains farther south. Those rains moved across northern Nebraska and central and southern Iowa before taking a more southerly route to the east by crossing central and southern Illinois, southern Indiana and most of Ohio. Once again we are avoiding an extended period of very hot weather in major growing areas. As the cool front continues to push south it is expected to bring clear weather to much of the northern and NW soybean belt, allowing some very wet areas to the north and NW to dry out. Rain is expected today in a broad east-west band across the southern half of the soybean belt. Dry conditions should last through the weekend in most major growing areas with the exception of scattered rains in the south central soybean belt on Friday and in the eastern Corn Belt on Saturday. The Delta remains dry with some rains expected on Thursday in the northern Delta and Mississippi. The same holds for Saturday with the rain possibly pushing farther south on Sunday. No tenders are scheduled for soybeans.