December 15, 2005

 

CBOT Corn Outlook on Thursday: Down 1 cent, searching for direction

 

 

Corn futures at the Chicago Board of Trade are forecast to open 1 cent lower Thursday, following the tone set in overnight trade while searching for market direction, sources said.

 

In overnight e-CBOT trading, March fell 1 1/4 cents to US$2.06, and May declined 1 cent to US$2.15 1/4 per bushel.

 

The market will struggle to find direction, a floor analyst said. Corn export sales were okay, but not enough to make a difference. Outside markets were lower, so the market won't get any help from them and fundamentally the news remains negative. The day should start out lower and then it will be up to the funds to determine where the market goes, he added.

 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported weekly corn export sales of 920,600 metric tonnes Thursday morning, above analysts' estimates of 600,000-800,000 tonnes. The largest buyer on the week was Japan, which purchased over 632,000 metric tonnes.

 

Scattered showers are expected over northern Argentina on Friday with dry weather returning over much of the region through the weekend, according to DTN Meteorlogix weather.

 

On technical charts, analysts see first resistance for March corn at US$2.10, and then at US$2.12. First support is pegged at US$2.06 1/2, Wednesday's low and then at US$2.04, the bottom of the upside price gap on the daily on the daily bar chart.

 

In other corn news, the 2006/07 E.U. corn crop is forecast at 50.0 million metric tonnes, up 4%, private analytical firm Strategie Grains forecast Thursday.

 

Corn production in France is expected to total 13.226 million metric tonnes in 2005, down over 19% from 2004, the French Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries reported Thursday.

 

Corn futures settled at lower levels at China's Dalian Commodity Exchange on spillover from soybean futures, sources said. The most-active September contract fell RMB7 higher to RMB1,324/tonne.