December 9, 2005

 

CBOT Corn Review on Thursday: Higher on short covering, late soy rally

 

 

Corn futures at the Chicago Board of Trade settled modestly higher Thursday as position evening before Friday's supply/demand report and spillover from a late fund-based rally in soybeans and soy meal helped support corn futures, traders said.

 

December corn rose 1 1/4 cents to US$1.88 1/4 per bushel, March gained 3/4 cent to US$2.01 3/4, and May finished 1 1/4 cents higher to US$2.10 3/4 per bushel.

 

The market traded on both sides of unchanged before it gained support from short covering ahead of Friday's report, a commission house broker said. In addition, late strength from fund buying in soybean meal and soybeans added to the firm tonnee late, he added.

 

Corn opened higher in line with a steady tonnee overnight and a stronger opening in soybeans before trading both sides of Wednesday's settlement.

 

Light commodity fund selling pressed prices to their lows of the day with March corn slipping to its contract low of US$2.00 1/4, floor analysts said.

 

Support at the contract low led to light short covering before the late rally in soybeans and soy meal extended the small gains, they added

 

Weekly corn export sales of 694,300 metric tonnes were near the high end of analyst estimates but had little impact. In addition, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that almost 114,000 metric tonnes of corn had been sold to Japan.

 

Buyers on Thursday included R.J. O'Brien buying 600 March, Rand Financial buying 500 March, Fimat buying 100 March, and Tenco buying 100 March and 100 May.

 

Sellers on Thursday included Tenco selling 2,000 March, Man Investor Services selling 500 March, O'Connor selling 200 March and the Refco division of Man Financial selling 200 March.

 

Commodity fund selling was less than 1,000 contracts.

 

Friday, the USDA is scheduled to release its supply/demand report at 7:30 CST (1330 GMT).

 

In a survey of 13 analysts conducted by Dow Jones, the average analysts' ending stocks estimate was 2.339 billion bushels, 20 million bushels higher the USDA estimated in November.

 

Oat futures settled with modest gains with the March future up 2 1/2 cents to US$1.97 1/2.

 

Ethanol futures ended mixed with the January contract up 1/2 cent to US$1.92 cents per gallon.