May 9, 2008

 

CBOT Corn Outlook on Friday: Up 5-10 on weather

 

 

Rainy Midwest weather and continued planting delays are expected to push Chicago Board of Trade corn futures 5-10 cents higher in open auction trading Friday, an analyst said.

 

Weather concerns remain the biggest market factor, even with Friday morning's U.S. Department of Agriculture supply and demand report showing increased ending corn stocks for the 2007-08 marketing year, said Shawn McCambridge, senior analyst with Prudential-Bache in Chicago. The report was released at 8:30 a.m. EDT.

 

In overnight trading, corn contracts broke their all-time highs set Thursday. May corn was up 8 1/4 cents to US$6.27, July was up 8 3/4 cents to US$6.39 and December was up 8 1/4 cents to US$6.54.

 

The USDA projects ending stocks of 1.383 billion bushels for the 2007-08 marketing year, an increase of 100 million bushels from April's projection, and higher than analysts' estimate of 1.32 billion bushels.

 

The projected increase is due to a 100 million bushel drop in usage for ethanol to 3 billion bushels, according to the report. The USDA maintained the same projections for harvested crop at 86.5 million acres, and for yield at 151.1 bushels per acre.

 

A trader said the projection could apply some downward pressure, but not enough to counteract planting delays and high crude oil prices, which are bullish.

 

McCambridge said the market will focus on the 2008-09 USDA projections because the "old-crop has already been traded." The report projects a drop in ending stocks to 763 million in the 2008-09 marketing year. Analysts predicted the number would be 707 million.

 

Although the new crop projections aren't unexpected, "seeing them in print" will make many traders bullish, he said. With this year's planting delays, it will be tough even to reach the government's projection of 763 million bushels, he added.

 

"If you don't see planting progress soon, it's going to demand rationing," McCambridge said.

 

Although the report projects ethanol usage will bounce back to 4 billion gallons in 2008-09, that increase "will be more than offset by a 949-million-bushel reduction in output," the USDA said.

 

"Feed and residual use is projected down 14% as corn feeding declines with increased production of distillers grains, higher corn prices, and reduced red meat production," the USDA said in the report. "Corn exports are projected down 16% as U.S. supplies face increased world competition with increased foreign production and a sharp drop in EU-27 imports."

 

In Friday's trading, bulls' next price objective is to push and close July corn prices above solid technical resistance at US$6.50, while bears' objective is to push prices below solid support at US$6.00, according to technical analyst Jim Wyckoff.

 

First resistance is seen at Thursday's contract high of US$6.34 and at US$6.40, Wyckoff said. First support is seen at US$6.28 1/4 and then US$6.24.

 

The forecast by DTN Meteorlogix calls for mostly dry weather Friday and Saturday but rain and thunderstorms across the U.S. corn belt on Sunday.

 

In international news, European Union licenses to import corn rose 137,000 metric tonnes in the week ended May 6, adding to the hefty surge in feed grain imports seen earlier in the 2007-08 campaign, E.U. data showed Friday.

 

At 45 weeks into the marketing year, E.U. corn import licenses totaled 12.266 million tonnes, which is up by more than two and a half times from the same time last year, when licenses tallied 4.58 million tonnes.