Corn Finishes Higher after Afternoon Rally
The midweek corn trade was a mostly tight range around UNCH, but afternoon strength developed and pushed futures 1 ¼ to 4 ½ cents higher for the close. May was just ¾ of a cent off the day’s high for the settle. May stayed in a 6 ¼ cent range during Wednesday.
Traders are looking for the weekly Export Sales data to show between 800k MT and 1.4 MMT of old crop corn was sold during the week that ended 2/29. New crop bookings are expected to be below 100k MT.
Ukraine’s March grain shipments were already 774k MT according to Ministry data. That compared to 641k MT during last year’s pace. Feb’s total was 5.8 MMT at +11.5% vs last year.
Official Brazilian export data revealed 1.7 MMT of corn was shipped during the month of February. That compared to 2.27 MMT last year.
The weekly EIA data showed output drew back 21k barrels per day to 1.057 million during the week ending 3/1. Ethanol stocks grew by 29k barrels to 26.051 million.
Mar 24 Corn closed at $4.18, up 4 1/2 cents,
Nearby Cash was $4.00 3/8, up 3 cents,
May 24 Corn closed at $4.28 3/4, up 2 1/2 cents,
Jul 24 Corn closed at $4.40, up 2 1/2 cents,
Dec 24 Corn closed at $4.61, up 1 3/4 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 Barchart Disclosure Policy here.
