Friday’s corn trade closed with 2 ¼ to 4 ¾ cent losses. That pushed old crop corn lower for the week’s move with March down by a net 3 ¾ cents. Dec futures held onto a ½ cent gain for the week. The old-new crop carry was up to 34 cents at the close.
CFTC’s weekly Commitment of Trader’s report showed corn specs pushed their short during the week that ended 1/30. The 18.8k new shorts expanded the group’s net short to 280,151 contracts. Commercial corn hedgers reduced positions, with 26k fewer contracts in play and an 8k contract weaker net long.
Traders are expecting USDA’s Feb reports to tighten the 23/24 U.S. corn carryout by 12.7 mbu on average. Corn exports are expected to be upped by 7.8 mbu going into the report. Global corn carryout is expected to tighten 600k MT on average with a 2.2 MMT smaller Brazilian crop expected.
USDA’s NASS reported 481.7 mbu of corn was used for ethanol production during December. That was a 5-yr high for the month, and was a 5% increase from November’s corn draw. The season’s total to date was 1.83 bbu compared to 1.708 bbu last year.
Mar 24 Corn closed at $4.42 3/4, down 4 1/2 cents,
Nearby Cash was $4.24 5/8, down 4 3/4 cents,
May 24 Corn closed at $4.53 1/2, down 4 3/4 cents,
Jul 24 Corn closed at $4.62 1/2, down 3 1/2 cents,
On the date of publication, Alan Brugler did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. For more information please view the Disclosure Policy here.
Disclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.
