CHICAGO: Chicago Board of Trade corn futures were higher on Friday on short-covering amid oversold technicals and following news the EPA would uphold an ethanol mandate, traders said.
* "I think we exhausted the selling that started after the USDA report. We've taken it down hard after the report and it was oversold so there was short-covering before the weekend. I don't see anything new fundamentally," a trader said.
* The United States decided on Friday to hold in place its mandate to add corn ethanol to motor fuel despite reduced corn production, arguing that the policy does not cause undue economic harm.
* USDA on Friday said net export sales of US corn last week totaled 312,000 tonnes, within the range of estimates for 200,000 to 400,000 tonnes.
* Analysts were expecting USDA's cattle on feed report on Friday to show US cattle placements in October at 2.178 million head, down 12.6 percent from a year ago and the lowest in 16 years due to high feed costs.
* Corn spot basis bids were steady to higher at processing plants around the US Midwest on Friday and ethanol plants also upped their bids. Cash basis found support from slow farmer offerings as the US harvest drew to a close.
* Overall satisfactory crop weather continues in most of South America with the exception of some flooding in portions of Argentina and pockets of dryness in northwest Brazil, said Andy Karst, meteorologist for World Weather Inc.
* Key resistance for December is at the 50-day moving average of $7.47-1/4 and key support is at the 200-day moving average of $6.54. The nine-day relative strength index is at 41.
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