February 21, 2007

 

CBOT Corn Review on Tuesday: End mixed; lacked fresh directives

 

 

Chicago Board of Trade corn futures ended mixed Tuesday, with the absence of fresh market moving news producing a quiet two-sided session.

 

March corn ended 1 3/4-cent lower at US$4.15 1/4 per bushel, and December finished 1 1/4-cent lower at US$4.28 1/4.

 

The market had sense of indecisiveness over the course of the day, reflecting the lack of strong news to aggressively push prices in either direction, a CBOT floor analyst said.

 

Carryover technical support from last week provided underlying support, with the uncertainty of 2007 acreage and weather serving as underpinning features as well. However, the lack of fresh inputs failed to provide any followthrough momentum, with speculative and local selling surfacing to dampen upside movement once futures were unable to breach resistance at contract highs, analysts said.

 

The rolling of nearby positions into deferred months added to the mixed theme, with continued commercial selling and spillover pressure from weakness in crude oil and metals markets providing pressure to keep prices on the defensive, traders added.

 

Meanwhile, the DTN Meteorlogix Weather forecast calls for very little rain or snow before the end of the week. This is troublesome especially in the northern Midwest and Northern Plains grain areas, where soil moisture is low ahead of spring field work season.

 

Argentina's central crop belt had rains of up to one inch. Crop prospects for corn remain very optimistic in this area of South America, Meteorlogix reports.

 

U.S. corn inspected for export in the week ended February 15 totaled 45.026 million bushels. The inspections are a 24% improvement over the previous week's 36.299 million bushels. Pre released trade estimates called for inspections in the 35 million to 40 million bushel range. Accumulated corn inspections for the 2006-07 marketing year total 992.763 million bushels, up 15.8% from last year's 857.272 million at the same time.

 

 

In pit trades, UBS Securities bought 1,000 July, Fimat bought 500 March, Rand Financial bought 300 December, and Tenco bought 400 May, 400 July and 300 December.

 

On the sell side, FCStonnee sold 1,000 December, JP Morgan sold 500 March and 400 December, Fortis sold 1,000 March, and Rand Financial sold 500 December. Speculative fund selling was estimated between 3,000 and 4,000 contracts.

 

Day session volume on the e-CBOT platform was 140,794 contracts.

 

CBOT oat futures ended mixed, with a continuation of rolling old crop positions into new crop contracts featured attractions. March oats closed 1-cent lower at US$2.41 1/2 per bushel and December ended 1-cent higher at US$2.48.

 

Ethanol futures ended Tuesday's session posting light losses. The March contract settled 0.005 lower at US$2.093, and the April contract settling 0.005 lower at US$2.050.