November 29, 2007

 

CBOT Corn Review on Wednesday: Ends near highs on late speculative buying

 

 

Chicago Board of Trade corn futures settled higher Wednesday, overlooking a steep slide in energy and precious metals prices as late speculative buying and spillover from the limit-up rally in nearby wheat futures lifted prices higher, an analyst said.

 

March corn settled 3 3/4 cents higher to US$4.04 1/2 per bushel.

 

"Corn was caught for much of the day between following the strength in wheat and the steep losses in outside markets, particularly crude oil," said Don Roose, president of US Commodities, in West Des Moines, Iowa.

 

March wheat rallied 30 cents higher to US$8.81 3/4 per bushel while nearby crude oil fell US$3.80 to US$90.62 per barrel.

 

The weakness in precious metals prices also acted as an anchor to prices, a commission house analyst said. Nearby gold finished US$13.70 lower at US$800.30 dollars per ounce.

 

Early technical weakness in March with prices slipping below the 10-day ad 20-day moving averages could not be sustained and that encouraged speculative buying near the close, the commission house analyst added.

 

Overall commodity fund buying was estimated at 2,000 contracts.

 

Ideas that Thursday's export sales report will show continued strong demand for U.S. corn also was supportive, a trader said.

 

Analysts expect corn export sales for the week ended Nov. 22 between 1.0 million and 2.0 million metric tonnes. Sales the previous week totaled 1.846 million tonnes.

 

Price direction Thursday will depend on what happens in wheat, the outside markets and the level of export sales, a trader said.

 

In options trading, MF Global bought 1,000 January US$4.10 calls and JP Morgan sold 500 July US$4.50 calls.

 

Oat futures settled modestly higher in quiet activity as the market lacked a feature, an analyst said. There wasn't much interest in oats after recent price weakness and oats ignored the gains in wheat, the analyst said.

 

March oats settled 1 1/4 cents higher at US$2.84 1/2 per bushel.

 

Ethanol futures settled lower. December ethanol fell 3.8 cents to US$1.93 per gallon and January fell 5.4 cents to US$1.82.

 

Thursday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is scheduled to release the weekly export sales report at 8:30 am EST.