Chicago Board of Trade corn futures closed lower on Wednesday on long liquidation ahead of Friday's key government seedlings and grain stocks report. Corn fell despite trade reports that private Chinese importers have purchased six cargoes, or about 360,000 tonnes, of US corn for shipment in May and June. Position-squaring dominated dealings ahead of the release early Friday of USDA's March plantings and quarterly stocks reports.
An average of 25 analysts' pegged this year's US corn plantings at 94.720 million acres, the most since 1944. They estimated US quarterly stocks of corn on March 1 at 6.150 billion bushels, the smallest in five years. The July/December was at 83-1/2 and the December corn/November soyabean ratio was at 2.46.
The corn-versus-wheat spread may sound very "last year", but could prove to be a popular trading strategy again in 2012 as the US winter wheat harvest and corn planting season approach, said Reuters analyst Gavin Maguire. The CBOT September corn contract is stealing attention and money from the December contract as expectations for an early harvest have increased hedging activity and spreading with the fall contract, analysts said.
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