Corn futures turned down just after the morning open, and selling continued into the end of the day. At the close, December was down 4 cents to end the week on the lows. Funds were estimated sellers of 11,000 contracts through Friday’s trade.
The weekly Commitment of Traders report showed that funds had added to their net short position. Funds were reported as net short nearly 155,000 futures contracts, and were short another 16,000 contracts through options. The combined net short position of near 171,000 contracts was up was 8,000 more than a week ago and the largest net short position since June. Hedgers continue to cover sales on breaks, and note that the fund net short position is now larger than the hedger position for the first week since last spring.
The larger than expected US corn yield along with slow demand looks to cap rallies. Our strategy remains to use any 10-15 bounce in March corn for sales.
