Corn Commentary
March Corn closes ½ cent lower ($3.47), July ½ cent lower ($3.63 ¾) and Dec unchanged ($3.80)
January Chgo CBOT Ethanol closes 0.007 cents a gallon higher ($1.269), Feb 0.007 cents higher ($1.300)
USDA announces 168.0 K T. Grain Sorghum sold to China
Weekly Corn Export Inspections – 594.2 K T. vs. 600-800 K T. expected
Not much of a day for corn trading as daily ranges struggled at or just above recent contract lows; just 1 ¾ – 2 ¼ cent ranges. Implied volatility stays low furthering the idea that we have a lack of uncertainty. SA weather remains conducive to crop development. Weekly export inspections were deemed disappointing based on traders’ expectations. Yes – we have great domestic demand but given the available stocks and without export it’s tough to sustain much upside momentum. As of this writing the best support the corn market has the large amount of spec shorts. Unfortunately there’s not much out there that would suggest they are wrong. With 2 weeks left in the fiscal year I’m still holding out for some year-end short covering.
3 out of 10 interior corn basis locations see improvement. I only saw one location with a lower basis and that was on the Illinois River. This location is famous for flip-flopping with other Illinois River locations depending on who needs corn vs. who doesn’t. Not much is happening at the Gulf as over the past number of days it has been flip-flopping back and forth going nowhere fast. Corn spreads ran steady within the current crop year – lost fractionally vs. the new crop.
Charts look ugly as we hover at recent contract lows. Implied volatility remains at or near its lowest of the season. Unless we get some outside bullish influence the corn market will do well for itself just to move into a consolidation pattern at current levels.
Daily Support & Resistance for 12/19
March Corn: ??? – $3.53
July Corn: ??? – $3.70
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