Corn Commentary

storck

Corn – Just My Opinion

Dec Corn closed 5 ¾ cents higher ($4.16 ¼), March 4 ¾ cents higher ($4.24 ¼) & July 3 ½ cents higher ($4.29 ¾)

Dec Chgo Ethanol closed $0.040 cents a gallon lower ($1.440), Jan $0.040 lower ($1.400)

Weekly Corn Export Inspections – 817.4 K T. vs. 650 K – 1.000 M T. expected

Weekly Corn Crop Progress Harvested – 95% vs. 96% expected vs. 87% 5-year average

After some early flip-flopping involving slightly lower prices the daily intra-day trend soon became firm. Technical traders will say they couldn’t break the market so it rallied. The fundamental side of the trade is the idea China has resumed active buying of US origin corn Friday and again early today. There has been no confirmation of such business but it’s hard to ignore that bull spreading has returned to the corn futures market. The latest COT report is a bit surprising since most had been expecting to see an increase in net longs not a decrease. Brail is seeing scattered moisture but nothing general. Argentina continues to see a dry bias. Forecasters continue to suggest better rains may be on the way for central Brail while its southern areas and Argentine will continue to see a drier than normal trend.

The latest Commitment of Traders report suggests that from 11/04 to 11/10 large speculators cut their net long corn position by 4,258 contracts and the managed sector cut their net long corn position by 9,245 contracts. This is a bit confusing considering March corn rallied 25 cents in that same time frame. Total open interest gained 34 K contracts for the same time frame.

The interior corn basis from the processor reads steady to higher. River locations that had been under pressure for most of last week are stabilizing to rebounding. The recent decline in the Gulf basis has stabilized as its midday posting is slightly better vs. Friday’s posting.

After the selloff we saw in the latter part of last week prices are now in the process of retracing some of that break. The question now is whether or not Wednesday’s downside reversal is legitimate. Last week’s late break tested minor support. Now it looks like we are in the process of testing the resistance that was set up with the Wednesday, Thursday break.

Daily Support & Resistance – 11/17

March Corn: $4.19 – $4.29

July Corn: $4.25 – $4.34 

The risk of trading futures and options can be substantial. Each investor must consider whether this is a suitable investment. Past performance is not indicative of future results.