On Thursday, the CBOT soybean front-month contract continued to close lower, mainly due to drier weather in the U.S. Midwest, which accelerated the soybean harvest pace. Farmers took advantage of the clear weather window to step up operations, and the pressure of concentrated new-crop market arrivals became apparent. The USDA weekly export sales report showed that for the week ending October 1, current-crop U.S. soybean net sales were 549,400 tonnes, down 47% from the previous week and at the low end of the market expectation range of 450,000-1.2 million tonnes. Of this, net sales to mainland China were 382,900 tonnes, while export shipments increased to 1.3797 million tonnes, with 827,900 tonnes shipped to China. Market focus has shifted to Friday's USDA monthly supply and demand report. Analysts on average expect U.S. soybean yield to remain unchanged at 52.8 bushels per acre, with ending stocks projected to be lowered to 305 million bushels.