September 28, 2006
CBOT Corn Outlook on Thursday: Up slightly, following overnight trade
Chicago Board of Trade corn futures are expected to begin Thursday's day session trading steady to 1/2 cent higher, following the tone set in overnight trade, floor sources said.
In overnight e-CBOT trading, December corn rose 3/4 cent to US$2.54 1/2 per bushel and March also gained 3/4 cent to US$2.68 1/2. e-CBOT volume overnight in December was 2,789 contracts.
Corn was steady overnight and despite Wednesday's declines, still looks good on technical charts, a floor analyst said.
Early yield reports continue to be variable and might indicate that there may not be a big increase in the October production estimate, he added.
After the recent weakness, the market could see some strength from short covering ahead of Friday's grain stocks report and weekly export sales were in line with estimates and could also limit any weakness, a commission house analyst said. Continued concerns about the potential for harvest delays may also lend support, he said.
In a Dow Jones Newswire survey of 14 analysts the average 2005-06 quarterly stocks estimate was 1.967 billion bushels, below the 2.012 billion ending stocks figure in the Sept. 12 U.S. Department of Agriculture supply and demand report.
The USDA is scheduled to release the Quarterly stocks report on Friday at 7:30 a.m. CDT (1230 GMT).
The USDA reported weekly corn export sales were 829,700 metric tonnes for the week ended Sept. 21, within the 700,000-1.0 million tonnes expected by analysts.
Both the eastern and western U.S. Midwest are forecast to have above normal temperatures and above normal precipitation for the period from Oct. 3 through Oct. 7, DTN Meteorologix Weather said.
Cash corn basis bids were mixed Thursday morning, with Central Illinois unchanged at 5 cents under the December future.
In other corn news, corn futures on China's Dalian Commodity Exchange settled mostly higher with the May contract unchanged at RMB1,400/tonne.
