January 4, 2008

 

CBOT Corn Review on Thursday: Settles higher on wheat, soy spillover

 

 

Chicago Board of Trade corn futures settled with small gains Thursday, benefiting from stronger wheat and soybean futures.

 

March corn settled 3 1/2 cents higher at US$4.66 per bushel.

 

Nearby CBOT wheat settled limit up, with March futures 30 cents higher at US$9.45 per bushel. Deferred July soybeans established a new all-time high of US$12.93 per bushel on e-cbot, above the previous high of US$12.90 set in June 1973. July soybeans settled 19 cents higher at US$12.91.

 

Corn followed the other commodities higher, a commission house analyst said. There was little in the way of fresh fundamental news and most participants were not willing to sell ahead of next week's U.S. Department of Agriculture production and supply/demand reports, the analyst said.

 

Ideas that index funds will be rebalancing their positions next week to include more corn also limited selling interest, a trader said.

 

Speculative buying also provided support, as commodities in general continue to attract new investment money, the trader said.

 

In open auction trading commodity fund buying was estimated at 4,000 contracts.

 

Choppy trade in crude oil futures limited the influence of energy on corn, with its ethanol component, an e-cbot trader said. Nearby crude oil established a new all-time high but settled lower.

 

On daily technical charts, electronically traded March corn remained above its major moving averages but traded an "inside day," between the high and low established in Wednesday's session. The 14-day Relative Strength Index in March was 81.23.

 

In options trading, Penson GHCO bought 1,000 July US$5.00 calls and sold 2,000 July US$6.00 calls.

 

Oat futures settled with sharp gains, making new life-of-contract highs for the second consecutive session as fund buying pushed prices higher, a trader said.

 

March oats settled 13 1/2 cents higher at US$3.25 1/2 per bushel, after trading as high as US$3.30.

 

Ethanol futures ended lower. January ethanol declined 6.5 cents to US$2.355 per gallon while February fell 3.3 cents to US$2.276.

 

On Friday, the USDA is scheduled to release the weekly export sales report for the period ended Dec. 27, at 8:30 a.m. EST. Analysts expect sales between 800,000 to 1.3 million metric tonnes. The report is delayed a day because of the holiday.