FORT COLLINS, (Colo): Speculators gave Chicago-traded corn a very large, unexpected vote of confidence to start off this month, and they largely defended those views in the latest week despite a price decline.
Most-active CBOT corn futures fell 3.2% in the week ended Nov. 9, but money managers were very stingy sellers of the yellow grain, reducing their net long by less than 5,000 to 319,609 futures and options contracts. Selling had been pegged four times larger than it was.
That is according to data published on Monday afternoon by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The data was delayed from its usual Friday release due to the Veterans Day holiday on Thursday. The corn selling reluctance comes one week after money managers comfortably set a record for the most gross corn longs added in a single week at nearly 73,000. Their net long is above the year-ago 280,835 contracts.
Commodity index traders’ participation in the corn market is well off the records from earlier this year and below the year-ago levels, but their total number of corn contracts has risen 7% in the latest three weeks as global inflation fears continue to rise. Corn futures settled fractionally lower on Monday, but they have risen 3.9% since Nov. 9, supported by strong US ethanol margins, a surging wheat market and high worldwide energy prices. December corn is nearly 16% off the Sept. 10 low. Unlike in corn, money managers seemingly have very low confidence in soybeans, as their net long as of Nov. 9 dropped by more than 30,000 to 12,137 futures and options contracts, the lowest since June 2020. That included more than 20,000 new shorts, the most for any week since February 2020.
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