Chicago Board of Trade corn futures settled lower Thursday, succumbing to speculative selling in the absence of fresh supportive news.

 

March corn ended down 2 3/4 cents, or 0.76%, at US$3.57 1/4 per bushel, and May corn ended 2 3/4 cents lower, or 0.74%, at US$3.69 per bushel. Speculative fund selling was estimated at 8,000 lots.

 

A quiet news front kept attention on outside markets again, as traders continue to look for a reason to push prices higher without an increase in demand.

 

Abundant U.S. and world supplies and favorable outlooks for the developing South American crop served as fundamental barriers to upside movement, said Jason Roose, analyst with U.S. Commodities in West Des Moines, Iowa.

 

The market is stuck in a trading range, with end-user buying on price breaks providing gradual support to keep a floor beneath futures, Roose said. However, the threat of large supplies and the outside influence of a strong U.S. dollar provided a weaker tone for prices, he added.

 

Otherwise, the market lacked aany key directive, aggressively trading the movement in the U.S. dollar, with support from higher crude-oil futures limiting declines.

 

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Agriculture now expects U.S. farmers to plant 89 million acres of corn in 2010, Chief Economist Joseph Glauber said Thursday. Glauber said the 2010 corn crop was projected at 13.2 billion bushels, slightly bigger than the 2009 crop and up from the baseline projection of 12.96 billion.

 

USDA's weekly export sales report, normally issued on Thursday, will be released Friday, 8:30 a.m. EST due to Monday's Presidents Day holiday. Analysts surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires estimate corn sales for the week ended Feb. 11 to be in the range of 550,000 to 850,000 metric tonnes.

 

CBOT oat futures ended lower. March oats dropped 3 cents, or 1.26%, to US$2.35 a bushel, and May oats finished 3 cents lower, or 1.21%, at US$2.44.

 

Ethanol futures ended lower. March ethanol finished US$0.004 lower, or 0.23%, at US$1.702 per gallon, and April ethanol ended US$0.007 lower, or 0.41%, at US$1.700.