Like the corn market, soybeans are coming off what could be considered an outlier year driven by widely varying and complex factors. As we look ahead into 2026, both markets offer similar takeaways.
How often does the new-crop November futures contract record its calendar-year high on the day it expires? Not often, but it happened in 2025, on Nov. 14, with a price peak at just under $11.39 per bushel, up almost $1.68 from the year’s low in April.
That price high, of course, came just a few days before a China-driven rally was about to flame out, to be followed by a steep selloff that didn’t bottom, at just under $10.40, until early this year. It was a wild end to a whiplash-inducing year for soybean producers, who might now, as they mull over spring seeding plans, be wondering what the market might do for an encore.
Based on recent market history, such late-year dramatics and rally pricing opportunities are relatively rare. And that means that once seeds are in the ground, it would be a good idea for farmers to get their pricing trigger fingers warmed up (if they aren’t already).
In seven of the past 10 years, the new-crop November contract established what turned out to be the intraday high for its corresponding calendar year in May, June or July. It happened twice each in May (2018, 2024) and July (2017, 2023) and three times in June (2016, 2021, 2022). Aside from last year, 2020 was the only other year that saw November futures peak in the expiration month (2019 was another outlier, with a peak in February). December corn exhibited a similar pattern over the past decade.
In those seven years, the November contract fell by an average of $2.42, or almost 19%, from May-July peak to trough. In 2024, for example, November futures briefly surpassed $12.30 in early May before tumbling as low as $9.55 in mid-August. (November 2026 soybeans began the year around $10.63.)
Rally prospects this year already face an uphill battle with Brazil likely to harvest another record soybean crop and U.S. farmers potentially poised to sharply hike bean plantings, perhaps by 4 million acres or more.
Bulls still have a few legs to stand on, including record domestic crushing, record U.S. soymeal exports and hopes for ratcheted-up biofuel mandates from the Trump administration. Summer weather is always a risk.
China remains a wild card, having largely followed through on initial soybean purchase commitments stemming from last fall’s trade truce. But will China step up for the much more ambitious, long-term Trump team target of 25 million metric tons a year the next three years?
After a wild 2025, perhaps the soybean market is setting up for something more like a “normal” year — if there is such a thing. If that’s the case, the most prudent marketing tack may be to seek pricing opportunities early and often.
