January 1, 2008
CBOT Corn Review on Monday: Settles up on light speculative buying
Chicago Board of Trade corn futures settled with modest advances Monday as light speculative buying supported prices in an abbreviated session.
March corn settled 3 1/2 cents higher at US$4.55 1/2 per bushel.
The CBOT closed at 1 p.m. EST Monday and will be closed Tuesday for the New Year holiday.
Spillover weakness from sharply lower soybean prices kept corn on the defensive in the early going, a commission house analyst said.
Light speculative fund buying near midday, however, helped lift prices from their lows to trade higher, said Jason Roose, an analyst with U.S. Commodities in West Des Moines, Iowa.
Fund buying was estimated at 2,000 contracts in open auction activity.
Light corn/soybean spreading also added support, with the spread coming back in line after the recent rally in soybeans, the commission house analyst said. However, overall volume was light with some participants absent ahead of the New Year holiday, a trader said.
Ideas that corn will see additional investment from commodity funds rebalancing their portfolios in 2008 added to the buying interest, a trader said.
News was light during the session with only the U.S. Department of Agriculture's weekly export inspections report for the week ended Dec. 27. Inspections were below analyst estimates, but the report was ignored by the market, the trader said. The USDA reported that 38.742 million bushels were inspected, below the 41 million to 48 million expected by analysts.
On daily technical charts, electronically traded March corn matched its high reached Friday but could not trade above it.
Oat futures ended with mild gains in thin trade as light fund buying supported prices, a commission house analyst said.
March oats settled 3 3/4 cents higher at US$3.06 3/4 per bushel.
Ethanol futures settled mixed. January ethanol gained 3.3 cents to US$2.368 per gallon while February edged .008 cent lower to US$2.22.
