Corn futures head into the weekend with double digit losses. March futures touched limit down briefly, bounced, and still closed near the session lows. The other front months were down 21 1/4 to 23 1/2 cents. News flow was mostly positive, but money flow wasn’t. EIA data showed ethanol producers averaged 945k barrels of production per day on the week ending 1/15. That was up 4,000 bpd wk/wk. Ethanol stocks shrank 64,000 barrels to 23.628 million. Corn export bookings were on par with LW, but above expectations with 1.437 MMT. CFTC data showed a 61,985 contract decrease in managed money OI, and a 83,217 contract increase in commercial OI. That left managed money 25,219 contracts less net long (@ 349,495), and commercials 10,423 contracts less net short (@ 763,953). BAGE reported 61% Argentina’s first corn crop was in pollination as of 1/21, compared to 71% LY. The soil moisture levels have improved from 20% reg/dry to 7% reg/dry, and conditions improved from 19% good/ex to 28% good/ex.
| Mar 21 Corn closed at $5.00 1/2, down 23 3/4 cents, |
| May 21 Corn closed at $5.03, down 23 1/4 cents, |
| Jul 21 Corn closed at $4.98 3/4, down 23 1/2 cents, |
| Sep 21 Corn closed at $4.51 1/2, down 21 1/4 cents, |
--- provided by Brugler Marketing & Management
