December 29, 2006

 

CBOT Corn Review on Thursday: Up; technical buying, soy complex spillover

 

 

Chicago Board of Trade corn futures ended Thursday's session modestly higher, underpinned by light technical buying and spillover strength from the soy omplex.

 

March corn ended 1 3/4 cents higher at US$3.88 1/2 cents per bushel, and May finished 1 1/2 cents higher at US$3.96 1/4.

 

The market propelled to new highs for the current move, buoyed by technical buys, with spillover from soybeans and optimistic long range demand prospects underpinning prices, analysts said.

 

Overall activity was relatively quiet, with the market quickly trimming initial gains after resistance near contract highs stemmed the tied of the gains, traders said. Speculative selling surfaced on the exhaustion of upside moves, but bullish underlying fundamentals kept a floor under prices, traders added.

 

A quiet news front kept technical features key, with the ability of nearby contracts to hold above recent highs supportive, traders said. Nevertheless, solid resistance hovering above the market at contract highs managed to cap upside potential as well as lingering concerns over the expected shift of soybean acres to corn in 2007, traders added.

 

On tap for Friday, U.S. Department of Agriculture is scheduled to release its weekly export sales report 7:30 a.m. CST. Analysts surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires anticipate corn commitments in a range of 800,000 to 1,100,000 metric tonnes.

 

As a reminder, CBOT grain and oilseed markets close at noon CST Friday.

 

In pit trades, buyers were widely scattered, with ADM Investor Services buying 600 March and RJ O'Brien a buyer of 300 March. On the sell side, Citigroup and Fimat each sold 300 July, Fortis sold 2,000 July, UBS Securities sold 600 March and 500 July, JP Morgan sold 700 March. Rand Financial sold 500 July and Tenco sold 500 March.

 

CBOT oat futures ended higher on fund buying in a slow trading session, sources said. Funds bought March and December, while there was also some light commercial selling, a trader added.

 

March oats closed 1 1/2 cents lower at US$2.77 3/4 per bushel and May ended up 1 3/4 cents at US$2.82 1/4.

 

Ethanol futures ended mixed. The January contract closed up .009 at US$2.435 per gallon. The February contract settled .010 lower at US$2.290.