CBOT corn ends near unchanged as traders shrug off slow US planting

CHICAGO: Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) corn futures ended little changed on Thursday as traders shrugged off US planting delays, traders said.

CBOT May corn closed 1/4-cent higher at $3.58-1/2 per bushel. The contract traded within Wednesday's range.

Positioning ahead of the three-day weekend helped lift prices, traders said. CBOT grain markets will be closed on Friday for Good Friday.

Traders said it was too early to worry about a slow start to US corn planting because of wet weather.

The US Department of Agriculture is set to issue a weekly crop progress report on Monday that will likely show corn planting was about 7 percent or 8 percent complete, behind average, said Karl Setzer, operations manager for Citizens LLC, a US grain elevator company.

Farmers can still plant the crop quickly if they have a window of warmer, drier weather.

"You're not going to get planting-delay support on April 15. May 15, you will," Setzer said. "That's really the dark cloud that's hanging over everybody."

Solid demand lent some additional support to the market.

The USDA reported export sales in the week ended April 11 were 966,000 tonnes, above a range of trade expectations for 500,000 to 950,000 tonnes.

The United States won a World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling on Thursday against China's use of tariff-rate quotas for corn, rice and wheat, which it successfully argued limited market access for US grain exports.