September 14, 2007
 
CBOT Corn Review on Thursday: Ends lower on profit taking, wheat slide

 

 

Chicago Board of Trade corn futures settled moderately lower Thursday, undermined by speculative selling, profit taking and spillover weakness from the wheat pit, analysts said.

 

September corn declined 9 cents to US$3.30 3/4 per bushel, December fell 9 3/4 cents to US$3.46 3/4 and March ended down 9 1/4 cents at US$3.63 3/4.

 

It was a choppy trade, but there was no carry-through from Wednesday's gains, said Ross Carstens, an analyst with Commodity Services in Des Moines, Iowa.

 

The lack of additional corn-wheat spread unwinding and spillover losses from the wheat pit added to the weak tonnee in corn, Carstens said.

 

December wheat settled 15 1/2 cents lower at US$8.45 after almost trading limit-down earlier in the session.

 

Wednesday's corn-production figure was above analyst expectations and "the tendency is for big crops to get bigger, and that sentiment weighed on the market Thursday," Carstens said.

 

Speculative selling also added to the declines, with commodity fund selling estimated at 4,000 contracts.

 

Corn had little reaction to the weekly export sales report, an E-CBOT trader said. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported weekly corn sales were 1.040 million metric tonnes for the week ended Sept. 6, within the range of analyst estimates.

 

Price direction on Friday depends on the news overnight as well as any harvest reports, the E-CBOT trader said.

 

On daily technical charts, electronically traded December corn remained above most of its major moving averages.

 

In open auction trading, FC Stonnee bought 500 December, Iowa Grain bought 1,000 December, and Tenco sold 400 December.

 

In options trading, Tenco bought 5,000 December US$3.00 puts, MF Global bought 3,000 October US$3.70 calls and RJ O'Brien sold 1,000 December US$3.50 puts.

 

Oat futures ended higher despite early spillover weakness from wheat, an analyst said. Small lot buying interest emerged around midsession, reversing the losses and helping oats finish higher, the analyst said.

 

December oats rose 2 1/4 cents to US$2.79 per bushel and March gained 2 cents to US$2.89.

 

Ethanol futures settled higher in very thin trade. October ethanol gained 2 cents to US$1.608 per gallon and November ended up 1 cent to US$1.59.