November 30, 2006

 

CBOT Corn Review on Wednesday: Ends mixed; recovers from earlier losses

 

 

Chicago Board of Trade corn futures settled mixed in choppy trade Wednesday, at or near the days' highs as position squaring late in the session helped trim earlier losses, sources said.

 

December corn settled 1 1/2 cents higher to US$3.70 1/4 cents per bushel and March rose 1/2 cents to US$3.85 1/4. e-CBOT day session volume in March was 64,633 contracts.

 

The market is in a phase where it was looking for some long liquidation, said Jason Roose, an analyst at US Commodities in West Des Moines, Iowa. Corn prices fell on profit taking but it appears that any temporary break in prices was met by good buying interest, he added.

 

Futures traded lower in overnight activity and were lower for much of the session as end-of-month profit taking after recent strength and the absence of speculative buying interest for most of the session led the market lower, floor sources said.

 

Lingering concerns about the recent outbreak of bird flu in South Korea also added to the poor tonnee, they added.

 

Near the close, a rally in wheat futures helped kick-off short-covering, sources noted.

 

Some people got caught short and when wheat rallied, they had to cover, a commission house analyst said.

 

Buyers Wednesday included FC Stonnee, which bought 400 December, Man Financial, which bought 700 December and 1,000 July, and JP Morgan, which bought 1,000 March and 200 December.

 

RJ O'Brien sold 900 December and 700 March, JP Morgan sold 500 July, and Citigroup sold 400 July.

 

In spread trading JP Morgan bought 4,000 Dec.-Mar.

 

In options trading Man Financial bought 2,000 July US$3.80 puts and sold 2,000 July US$3.50 puts and 2,000 July US$4.80 calls. Oat futures settled lower as commission house and fund liquidation of nearby positions pushed prices lower, floor sources said.

 

December oats settled 5 1/2 cents lower at US$2.50 cents per bushel and March fell 4 3/4 cents to US$2.64.

 

Ethanol futures settled higher in light trading. The December contract rose 4.5 cents to US$2.26 cents per gallon. The January contract ended 2 cents higher at US$2.21.

 

Thursday is first notice day for the December future and the U.S. Department of Agriculture is scheduled to release the weekly export sales report at 7:30 a.m. CST. Sales are expected between 800,000 and 1.0 million metric tonnes for the week ended Nov. 23.