August 27, 2007

South Africa grains: Corn lower following CBOT
 

South African white corn futures ended a touch lower on Friday (Aug 24) as traders used overnight modest losses in the CBOT to snatch profits.

December white corn, the most active, ended seven rand lower at 1,925 rand/tonne and September lost nine rand to 1,870 rand/tonne.

"The market is at very high levels right now and it would continue to be pressured when it tries to go higher," a trader said.

He added that next week's Crop Estimates Committee report would not influence prices as he expected the committee to leave its forecast unchanged.

An I-Net Bridge poll also expects the committee when its meets on Tuesday to leave the production forecast unchanged at 6.904 million tonnes.

"At least 95 percent of this season's corn has been harvested and we're very close to the total. I don't see any reason for the committee to adjust its forecast," one analyst in the survey said.

The market has been trading in a narrow range of between 1,890 rand/tonne and 1,950 rand/tonne over the past few weeks as traders looked for signals about the amount of corn that would be planted in the coming season.

Shortly after the domestic grain market closed, the rand was bid at 7.27 per US dollar, from 7.23 on Thursday.

Dow Jones Newswires reported that Chicago Board of Trade corn futures ended modestly lower Thursday, pulling back from earlier gains on exhausted buying interest, analysts said. September corn ended 2 1/4 cents lower at US$3.45 1/4, and December finished 2 1/4 cents lower at US$3.62.