Monday, March 31, 2014

"Corn futures hit $5 after US curbs supply hopes"

Top tick $5.0360, $5.0300 last.
Following up on Friday's "Ag Commodities: Ahead of Monday's Big USDA Reports, One Number to Watch".
From Agrimoney:

Corn futures rebounded to $5 a bushel for the first time since September after the US eroded ideas of ample domestic supplies of the grain, saying that inventories are a little lower than thought and that sowings will fall significantly this year. 

The US Department of Agriculture, in a much-anticipated report on domestic grain stocks as of March 1, said that inventories of corn had risen by 30% year on year to 7.01bn bushels.
However, the figure was more than 90m bushels below market expectations, with traders expecting inventories to have shown a bigger rise after last year's record harvest.

And the USDA, in a separate closely-watched report, curtailed expectations of corn harvest prospects for this year by estimating sowings at a four-year low of 91.7m acres, down some 3.7m acres year on year.
The estimate was more than 1m acres short of the figure that investors had expected.

˜Bought back some demand'
The stocks figure implied use of 3.45bn bushels of US corn during the three months to March 1, up from 2.63bn bushels a year before, when consumption was squeezed by a dearth of availability following the drought-hit 2012 harvest.

"Lower prices have bought back some demand," said Steve Kahler, chief operating officer at Teucrium Trading, the New York-based issuer of commodity exchange-traded products....MORE
And the hourly chart via FinViz: