CHICAGO: Chicago Board of Trade's corn futures closed higher for the third straight day on Friday, amid funds rebalancing and investors betted on new demand for US grains if next week's US-China trade talks go well, traders said.
* CBOT March corn settled up 3-1/4 cents at $3.83 per bushel, after reaching $3.83-1/2, its highest since Dec. 19.
* The corn market was bolstered by US soybean futures, which climbed to a two-week high in mid-day trading on optimism over US-China trade talks planned for next week, coupled with declining estimates of the size of Brazil's developing crop.
* Stock and commodity markets rallied after Beijing announced a new round of negotiations with Washington on Jan. 7-8, bolstering hopes of a resolution to a tariff war that has clouded the global economic outlook.
* US President Donald Trump said on Friday that talks between Washington and Beijing aimed at resolving a bitter trade dispute were going "very well."
* Questions over South American weather also made the corn market just a tiny bit bullish on Friday, traders said.
* INTL FCStone, an agribusiness consultancy, on Friday revised its Brazil first corn crop forecast in the 2018/2019 season at 27.13 million tonnes, in January, versus its 27.27 million tonnes in its December forecast.
* But concerns over ethanol profitability, and the risk of the partial federal government shutdown delaying the roll-out of allowing higher levels of ethanol in gasoline during summer months, kept a bit of a ceiling on corn prices Friday, traders said.
* The US Energy Information Administration said on Friday that weekly US output of corn-based ethanol fell to 1.01 million barrels per day, and stocks of the biofuel rose to 23.16 million barrels.
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