September 11, 2007

 

CBOT Corn Review on Monday: Ends lower despite higher wheat, soybeans

 

 

Chicago Board of Trade corn futures settled modestly lower Monday, unable to generate any upside momentum despite stronger wheat and soybean prices, analysts said.

 

September corn declined 1 1/2 cents to US$3.29 3/4 per bushel, December also ended 1 1/2 cents lower at US$3.46 and March declined 1 cent to US$3.63.

 

"There is some disinterest in owning corn ahead of the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports on Wednesday," said Dale Durchholz, senior analyst at AgriVisor in Bloomingtonne, Ill. The corn harvest is beginning to pick up and early yield reports have people thinking that the production will be higher than expected, Durchholz said.

 

Weather conducive to harvesting corn is expected over the next several days in the U.S. Midwest also limited buying interest, a trader says. The DTN Meteorlogix Weather forecast expects mainly dry weather through Wednesday in much of the region.

 

Corn remains under pressure from the harvest and ideas of a larger crop, but on the other hand, corn is cheap compared to the other grains, said Durchholz.

 

A rally in both wheat and soybean futures limited the downside in corn, a trader said. December wheat settled 17 1/2 cents higher at US$8.61 per bushel and November soybeans gained 12 3/4 cents to US$9.18.

 

Stronger than expected export inspections released during the session had little market, the trader said.

 

The USDA reported weekly corn inspections for the period ending Sept. 6 were 43.958 million bushels, above the 34-39 million expected by analysts and the 38.417 million inspected last week.

 

On daily technical charts, electronically traded December remained within its recent trading range of US$3.58 to US$3.35 1/2.

 

In open auction trading, commodity fund selling was estimated at 2,000 contracts.

 

In options trading, MF Global sold 600 December US$3.20 puts and 1,000 December US$3.30 puts and UBS sold 2,000 December US$3.00 puts.

 

Oat futures ended higher as fund buying and spillover strength from stronger oat prices in overnight trading underpinned prices, a commission house analyst said.

 

Sep oats rose 2 1/2 cents to US$2.56 per bushel and Dec gained 4 cents to US$2.67 3/4.

 

Ethanol futures ended mixed in thin trade. Oct ethanol settled 1.8 cents higher at US$1.558 per gallon and Nov fell .007 cent to US$1.563.

 

Monday afternoon, the USDA is scheduled to release the weekly crop progress report for the week ended Sep. 9 at 4:00 p.m. EDT (2000 GMT).