Corn edges down, lingers near 6-mth low

In Commodity News 08/01/2016

U.S. corn edged down on Thursday, lingering near a six-month low touched in the previous session as expectations for bumper South American production offset the impact from some short-covering ahead of a widely watched U.S. government report next week.

FUNDAMENTALS

* Chicago Board of Trade front-month soybeans were little changed at $8.64-1/4 a bushel, having firmed 0.9 percent on Wednesday.

* Front-month corn fell 0.1 percent to $3.53 a bushel, after closing little changed in the previous session when prices hit a near six-month low of $3.50-1/4 a bushel.

* Front-month wheat rose 0.11 percent to $4.63-1/4 a bushel, having closed up 0.33 percent on Wednesday.

* The U.S. Department of Agriculture is scheduled to release its annual crop production report on Jan. 12 and the market is prone to bouts of short-covering by funds, which are holding very large short positions in grains.

* Expectations for bumper South American crops weighed on corn and soybean prices.

* Private analytics firm Informa Economics on Wednesday raised its estimate of Argentina’s 2015-16 corn production but left its forecast of the country’s soybean crop unchanged, trade sources said.

* Informa also left unchanged its Brazilian corn and soy production forecasts, while reducing its outlook for India’s wheat crop.

* Concerns that adverse weather in the hard and soft red winter wheat belts of the United States could reduce yields underpinned wheat futures, although gains were tempered by slow export demand for U.S. supplies.

MARKET NEWS

* The yen hovered at multi-month highs against its peers early on Thursday after investors snapped up the safe-haven currency as global uncertainty sapped risk appetite.

* U.S. oil prices edged away from 2009 lows in early trading on Thursday but overall market sentiment remained extremely bearish due to huge unused amounts of petroleum sitting idle in storage tanks and as China’s economy was showing no signs of recovery.

* U.S. stocks closed at their lowest level since early October on Wednesday, weighed down by fresh concerns over China and slower global growth and as energy shares tumbled with oil prices.

DATA FOR THURSDAY (GMT)

0900 Germany industrial orders for Nov

0900 Germany retail sales for Nov

1000 euro zone business climate for Dec

1000 Euro zone economic sentiment for Dec

1230 US Challenger Layoffs for Dec

1330 US initial jobless claims weekly

Grains prices at 0125 GMT

  Contract        Last    Change  Pct chg  Two-day chg MA 30   RSI 
CBOT wheat     463.25     0.50  +0.11%    +0.43%     477.66   39

  CBOT soy       864.25    -0.50  -0.06%    +0.82%     874.13   54
CBOT corn      353.00    -0.25  -0.07%    +0.00%     368.60   30
  CBOT rice      $11.83    $0.00  -0.04%    -0.84%     $11.57   59

  Euro/dlr       $1.079   $0.002  +0.14%    +0.44%
WTI crude      $33.98    $0.01  +0.03%    -5.53%     $37.71   29
  Currencies                                                

  USD/AUD         0.704   -0.003  -0.45%    -1.65%

Most active contracts

Wheat, corn and soy US cents/bushel. Rice: USD per hundredweight

RSI 14, exponential

Source: Reuters (Reporting by Colin Packham; Editing by Joseph Radford)