December 5, 2007

South Africa corn ends mixed, December down ZAR37

South African maize futures ended mixed on Tuesday (December 4, 2007), with old crop ending sharply lower and new crop ending virtually unchanged.

Traders said that new crop for delivery in December continued to be pressured by above-forecasts crop production estimates and talks that it may have been overbought.

"Some guys are trying to balance the price difference between old stock and new stock because they say December (old stock) is expensive and July (new stock) is cheap and therefore they sell December and use the proceeds to buy into July," a trader said.

The December white maize contract, the most active, fell 37 rand (US$5.45) to ZAR1,687 a tonne and the new crop for delivery in July was up ZAR9 to ZAR1,493/tonne.

The trader said prices for the new crop were expected to trade in a narrow range of between ZAR1,400 and ZAR1,600/tonne in the short term as traders watch the planting progress.

ZAR1 = US$0.1476 (Dec. 5, 2007)