December 9, 2006

 

CBOT Corn Review on Friday: Settles lower on light speculative sales

 

 

Chicago Board of Trade corn futures settled lower Friday, pressured by light speculative sales amid a lack of fresh fundamental issues.

 

December corn ended 4 1/4 cents lower at US$3.54 1/4 cents per bushel, and March dropped 4 cents to US$3.68 1/2.

 

Futures lacked conviction in either direction, before taking the path of least resistance lower, as the market seemingly grew tired of old news and speculative funds took a break, said Shawn McCambridge, senior grains analyst with Prudential Financial in Chicago.

 

The market staged a minor technical setback from Thursday's gains, with end-of-the-week positioning producing consolidative action in thin trade, analysts said.

 

Overall activity was sluggish, with lack of fresh fundamental issues and a lack of uncertainty surrounding outlooks for Monday's supply and demand report providing futures with few influences to direct prices, McCambridge added.

 

On tap for Monday, U.S. Department of Agriculture is scheduled to release its December supply and demand report 7:30 a.m. CST. In a survey conducted by Dow Jones Newswires, the average of 14 analysts' estimates peg 2006-07 corn ending stocks at 937 million bushels, slightly above the USDA's November estimate of 935 million.

 

In demand news, USDA announced Friday private export sales of 110,000 metric tonnes of U.S. corn for delivery to South Korea in the 2006-07 marketing year. Taiwan's Members Feed Industry Group, or MFIG, rejected all bids in a tender to purchase up to 60,000 metric tonnes of corn on Friday, a trader in Taipei said.

 

In pit trades, FCStonnee bought 400 July, Fimat bought 300 March and 500 May, RJ O'Brien bought 300 March. Sellers were widely scattered among various commission houses, with Fimat, ADM Investor Services and UBS Securities featured players.

 

Oat futures settled lower, retreating from early advances on spillover pressure from other grains, a floor source said. December oats settled 2 1/4 cents lower at US$2.52 per bushel and March dropped 1 1/2-cent to US$2.60 1/2.

 

Ethanol futures ended steady to lower. The January contract did not trade and finished unchanged at US$2.23 1/2 per gallon. The February contract also did not trade and settled 3 cents lower at US$2.165.

 

Friday afternoon the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is scheduled to release the weekly commitment of traders report for the period ending Dec. 5.