November 30, 2006

 

CBOT Corn Outlook on Thursday: Seen 4-6 cents higher, on e-CBOT, outside markets

 

 

Chicago Board of Trade corn futures are expected to begin trading 4-to-6 cents higher Thursday, taking their direction from higher prices in the overnight session and stronger outside markets, trade sources said.

 

In overnight e-CBOT trading, December corn rose 6 1/4 cents to US$3.76 1/2 cents per bushel and March gained 6 cents to US$3.91 1/4. e-CBOT volume in March was 7,334 contracts.

 

The dollar is weaker, the outside markets are all higher and export sales were solid, which all point to higher prices for corn, a floor analyst said. Silver futures were trading over 25 cents higher and gold was up US$9.00 per ounce. The speculative money remains in control, he added.

 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported weekly corn export sales were 1.083 million metric tonnes for the week ended Nov. 23, slightly above analysts' sales estimates of 800,000-1.0 million tonnes. The total included sales of 62.2 thousand tonnes for the 2007-08 marketing year.

 

Japan, Egypt and South Korea were the major buyers for the week.

 

On day session open auction technical charts the next upside objective for market bulls remains closing prices above US$4.00 in the March contract, with the bears' objective is closing prices below support at US$3.47 1/2, a technical analyst said.

 

First resistance for March corn is seen at the contract high of US$3.91 3/4 and then at US$3.95. First support is seen at US$3.80 and then at Wednesday's low of 3.77.

 

Deliveries posted against the December contract totaled 1,361 contracts. Large issuers included the customer account of RJ O'Brien, which issued 695 contracts, and the customer account of the Astro division of UBS Securities, which issued 566 contracts. Large stoppers included the customer account of Calyon Financial, which stopped 850 contracts and the customer account of Fortis, which stopped 300 contracts.

 

The last trade assigned was Oct. 19.

 

In other corn news, South Korea's Nonghyup Feed Inc. purchased 47,000 metric tonnes of either U.S. of South American corn from ADM in a tender concluded Thursday, a company official said.

 

Corn futures on China's Dalian Commodities Exchange settled lower, as harvest pressure weighs on the market, a Chinese analyst said. The May contract fell RMB/15 to RMB 1,590/tonne.