* CBOT March soybeans settled down 11-3/4 cents at $15.25-3/4 per bushel, easing from Monday's six-month high of $15.55-1/2.
* CBOT March soymeal ended down $9.90 at $491.10, extending its retreat from Monday's peak of $508.20, the highest price on a continuous chart of the most-active contract in nearly nine years.
* Traders have been shifting their focus in recent days to
the
advancing harvest of a likely record-large soybean crop in top
global supplier Brazil, while continuing to monitor drought in
Argentina, the world's biggest exporter of soymeal and soyoil.
* CBOT March soyoil bucked the weaker trend, settling
up
0.84 cent at 61.24 cents per pound.
* The National Oilseed Processors Association (NOPA) said
its U.S.
members crushed 179.0 million bushels of soybeans in January, up
0.8% from December but down 1.8% from the year-ago January 2022
crush. The figure fell below an average of analyst estimates for
181.656 million bushels.
* NOPA said soyoil supplies among its members rose to 1.829
billion pounds by the end of January, up 2.1% from December, but
the figure was below the average analyst estimate of 1.906
billion pounds.
* Ahead of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's weekly
export
sales report on Thursday, traders expected the government to
report export sales of U.S. soybeans in the week ended Feb. 9 at
400,000 to 1.1 million tonnes (old and new crop years combined).
(Reporting by Julie Ingwersen; Editing by Diane Craft)
