Corn Commentary
March closes 3 ½ cents lower ($3.54 ½), July 3 ½ cents lower ($3.68 ½) and Dec 3 cents lower ($3.83 ½)
April Chgo Ethanol closes 0.6 cents a gallon lower ($1.485), May 0.3 cents lower ($1.507)
Weekly Corn Export Inspections – 1.547 M T. vs. 1.250-1.550 M T. expected
Informa suggests corn planted acres will come in at 90.6 million acres vs. last month’s USDA at 90.0 million.
Flat price corn continues in its recent grind lower – now down 6 consecutive days. Call it spec liquidation; call it a lack of buying. Weekly corn export inspections were deemed solid but this data barely got a second look. The bottom line is that for the near term the rationale for ownership just isn’t here. Last week the USDA reminded us of plentiful US supplies and further advised us that the SA crop is growing larger. In 3 weeks the USDA will update Quarterly Stocks as well as Prospective Plantings. I would be surprised if we did not see some short covering ahead of that but it is still 3 weeks away.
Interior cash corn markets, for the most part, remain quiet. I did see a couple of river locations that are involved for export bump their bids a penny as did an eastern Midwest processor. The gulf is running unchanged vs. the past couple of days. Corn spreads ran unchanged within the current year while the current crop year continues to lose to the new crop. US corn business is considered decent enough but not enough to sway either the cash markets or the futures markets (spreads).
Down 6 days in a row may sound a bit excessive but it is nowhere near establishing a precedent. I think the precedent is down 10 plus days in a row. Anyone that participated in the rally on Feb 28th and again on March 1st is under water and so far the price action shows no signs of stabilization. We can talk about short term inter-day technical indicators reading oversold but in recent days all that has brought us is a bounce in the night session only to sell-off in the following day session. Daily technical data does not read oversold at this time.
Daily Support & Resistance for 03/14
July Corn: $3.65 – $3.73
Dec Corn: $3.80 – $3.88
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