May 10, 2007

 

CBOT Corn Review on Wednesday: Ends mixed; nearbys up on spread trade

 

 

Chicago Board of Trade corn futures settled mixed in modest market activity Wednesday with the nearby months supported by bull market spreading in an otherwise quiet session, analysts said.

 

May corn settled 3 1/2 cents higher at US$3.57 1/4 per bushel, July rose 2 3/4 cents US$3.66 1/4 while December slipped 1/2 cent to US$3.66.

 

"It was a consolidation type trading day," said Jack Scoville, analyst with Price Futures Group. The market got all of its selling out of the way after Tuesday's losses with speculative selling interest lacking, Scoville said.

 

Trading was featureless with the exception of old crop-new crop spreading, a commission house analyst said.

 

Some of the gains were related to short covering after recent declines and ahead of the U.S. Department of Agriculture stocks report on Friday, the analyst added.

 

The average of 14 analysts surveyed by Dow Jones expect 2007-08 corn ending stocks at 1.058 billion bushels, with an extremely wide range of estimates from 742 million bushels to 1.465 billion.

 

Buying interest was thin as near-term weather forecasts predict continued favorable planting weather through the end of the week across much of the U.S. Midwest, a floor trader said.

 

Corn could be supported Thursday on position squaring ahead of Friday's USDA reports, the floor trader said.

 

On daily open auction technical charts, July traded below its 200-day moving average for the first time since last September but settled above it.

 

In open auction trading, buyers included JP Morgan, which bought 600 July and Rand, which bought 400 December.

 

FC Stonnee sold 400 July and 400 December.

 

Commodity fund selling was estimated at 2,000 contracts.

 

In options trading, JP Morgan bought 1,000 July US$3.50 puts and sold 1,000 December US$4.00 calls.

 

Oat futures finished mixed as light commission house selling kept prices on the defensive, though scale-down commercial buying helped support the deferred months, a floor analyst says.

 

July oats settled 1/2 cent lower at US$2.55 per bushel while December gained 1 cent to US$2.49.

 

Ethanol futures settled unchanged to lower in modest trading. June ethanol settled unchanged at 2.10 per gallon and July slipped .005 cent to US$2.06.

 

On Thursday, the USDA is scheduled to release the weekly export sales report for the period ending May 3. Analysts expected corn export sales between 550,000-to-900,000 metric tonnes.