November 23, 2006

 

CBOT Corn Review on Wednesday: Shrugs off weakness, ends modestly higher

 

 

Chicago Board of Trade corn futures settled higher Wednesday after a choppy, two-sided trading session with the market closing early ahead of Thursday's Thanksgiving Day Holiday.

 

December corn settled 1 1/2 cents higher to US$3.62 3/4 cents per bushel and March gained 1 cent to US$3.78 1/4. e-CBOT day session volume in March was 41,661 contracts.

 

Spillover buying from stronger prices overnight and seasonal buying patterns helped support prices early on, sources said.

 

A sell off in crude oil futures as well as the dollar led to profit taking with futures falling into negative territory, a floor analyst noted.

 

However, prices rebounded as "the market got a little overdone to the downside and speculative buying entered the pit and supported prices," a commission house analyst said.

 

On daily open auction technical charts, March remained above its major moving averages and the 14-day relative strength index in March stands at 70.56.

 

Buyers Wednesday included Rosenthal, which bought 600 July, Rand Financial, which bought 500 December and JP Morgan, which bought 400 December and 200 March.

 

RJ O'Brien sold 1,800 December 2007, UBS sold 1,000 March, and Rand Financial sold 800 December.

 

Commodity fund selling was estimated at 2,000 contracts.

 

In options trading Man Financial bought 2,000 July US$2.80 puts.

 

Oat futures ended modestly lower in light trade as the continued roll out of nearby December into March by fund participants was the feature in a quiet session, sources said.

 

December oats settled 3/4 cent lower at US$2.54 3/4 cents per bushel and March slipped 1/4 cent to US$2.68.

 

Ethanol futures ended lower. The December contract didn't trade and settled 1 cent lower at US$2.17 cents per gallon. The January contract also did not trade and fell 0.005 cent to US$2.125.

 

The CBOT will be closed Thursday in observance of Thanksgiving Day.

 

On Friday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is scheduled to release the weekly export sales report for the week ended Nov. 16. Analysts estimate weekly corn export sales between 1.1 million and 1.4 million metric tonnes. Sales for the week ended Nov. 9 totaled 1.403 million tonnes.

 

On Friday, the CBOT will be closing at 12:00 p.m. CST.