Corn Closed in the Black on Thursday
Futures spent the majority of the trading range in the red on Thursday, but spent the majority of the day session in the black. A the close price were fractionally to 1 ¾ cents higher. March corn printed an 8 ¼ cent range for the day from -5 ½ to +2 ¾ cents. Corn open interest is up 222k contracts (17%) since the start of the year. Wednesday trading also increased OI in options, with 15k new calls and 25k new puts added.
Weekly EIA data showed production dropped off by 8k barrels per day to 1.054 million during the week that ended 1/12. That was still the 17th consecutive +1m bpd week. Ethanol stocks built up by 1.324 million barrels to 25.695 million. That is the largest stockpile since March.
Trade estimates ahead of the weekly Export Sales report are to see between 500k MT and 1.2 MMT of old crop corn booked for the week that ended 1/11. New crop corn sales are estimated to be below 100k MT.
The European Commission has seen corn imports at 9.52 MMT for the season through Jan 14. That is 42% behind last year’s pace. FranceAgriMer revised their corn export figure 40k MT lower to 4.15 MMT, with carryout for France upped to 2.2 MMT.
Mar 24 Corn closed at $4.44, up 1 3/4 cents,
Nearby Cash was $4.20, up 2 1/8 cents,
May 24 Corn closed at $4.55, up 1 1/4 cents,
Jul 24 Corn closed at $4.63 1/2, up 1 cent,
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 Barchart Disclosure Policy here.
