June 5, 2007

 

CBOT Corn Review on Monday: Mixed; market consolidates in slow trade

  

 

Chicago Board of Trade corn futures settled mixed Monday, consolidating in light trade as the lack of fresh news and slack speculative buying interest kept futures within relatively narrow ranges, analysts said.

 

July corn ended 3 cents lower at US$3.83 3/4 per bushel, September slipped 1 cent to US$3.88 1/4, and December ended unchanged at US$3.83.

 

Trading was choppy for much of the session as the market see-sawed back and forth from Friday's settlement prices. Midday weather forecasts did little to change the market's tone as the forecasts had a "little something for everybody," a commission house analyst said. Some forecasts had improved chances of rain for the U.S. Midwest this weekend while predicting much drier weather in their 11- to 16-day forecasts. As a result, trading was choppy, a floor trader said.

 

Stronger energy prices and an intraday rally in soybeans with some months reaching new contract highs supplied some support to corn, but there was not a lot of other news to support prices and commodity funds were largely absent from the market, the commission house analyst said.

 

Export inspections were below the range of analysts estimates but had little impact. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that corn inspected for export totaled 37.242 million bushels for the week ended May 31, below the 39 million to 44 million expected by analysts and the 43.373 million inspected last week.

 

Price direction Tuesday will be impacted by the weekly crop conditions report as well as the overnight forecasts, the floor trader said.

 

On daily technical charts, July remained above its major moving averages, with the exception of the 100-day moving average.

 

In open auction trades, Man Financial bought 500 December and Kottke bought 500 December.

 

In options trading, Calyon bought 1,000 September US$3.30 puts.

 

Oat futures ended higher as fund buying supported prices, continuing the recent pattern a floor analyst said.

 

"The funds bought it all day," the analyst said.

 

The September, December and March open auction contracts all made new life of contract highs for the second straight trading session.

 

July oats settled 5 cents higher to US$2.91 per bushel and December also gained 5 cents to US$2.83.

 

Ethanol futures settled lower in light activity. June ethanol fell 2.7 cents to US$2.143 per gallon and July slipped 0.001 cent to US$2.04.

 

Monday afternoon, the USDA is scheduled to the weekly crop progress report at 4:00 p.m. EDT (2000 GMT).