By Kirk Maltais

Sales of U.S. soybean exports exceeded the expectations of grain traders this week, buoyed by strong buying of new crop soybeans by China.

In its weekly report covering sales for the week ended August 11, the USDA said that sales of soybeans across the 2021/22 and 2022/23 marketing years totaled 1.4 million metric tons. Sales in 2022/23 totaled 1.3 million tons, with 779,000 tons sold to China.

Soybean sales across both marketing years exceeded the forecasts of grain traders surveyed by The Wall Street Journal this week. Traders forecast sales to land anywhere between 300,000 tons to 800,000 tons.

Meanwhile, corn sales across both marketing years totaled 849,300 tons, and wheat sales for 2022/23 totaled 207,200 tons. Corn sales landed on the high end of trader forecasts, while wheat sales - which were at a marketing-year low - fell below the low end of trader expectations.

To see related data, search "U.S. Export Sales: Weekly Sales Totals" in Dow Jones NewsPlus.

Write to Kirk Maltais at kirk.maltais@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 18, 2022 09:05 ET (13:05 GMT)