Tuesday, 17 March 2015 02:13
CHICAGO: Chicago Board of Trade corn futures fell for the third straight session on Monday, pressured by chart-based selling and disappointing US export inspections, traders said.
However, futures closed well above session lows amid a more than 2 percent spike in futures for competing grain wheat. Most-active CBOT May corn unofficially finished nearly 4 cents off its low of $ 3.75-1/2 per bushel.
The May contract traded below all major moving averages and fell to the lowest level since Jan. 30. Investors were eying
the Jan. 30 low of $ 3.73-3/4 as a support level while breaching that would result in a nearly five-month low.
Open interest during Friday’s sharply lower session expanded by 13,287 contracts, mostly in May futures, suggesting investors were making new short, or bearish, bets, CME Group data showed.
Commodity Futures Trading Commission data released late Friday indicated speculative investors, including hedge funds, slashed their net long positions in corn to a net long stake of 4,194 contracts as of March 10, the smallest since October.
The US Department of Agriculture earlier Monday said export inspections of corn in the week ended March 12 totaled 735,311 tonnes, the smallest in a month and below the low end of analysts’ expectations.
South Korea’s largest feedmaker, Nonghyup Feed Inc, has issued an international tender to purchase up to 207,000 tonnes of corn and up to 69,000 tonnes of feed wheat, European traders said. The tender deadline is March 17, they said.
Copyright Reuters, 2015
