(Businessweek) – Corn rose for the first time in four days before planting and stocks reports later this week. Wheat and soybeans also gained.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture will publish its estimates for the country’s corn, wheat and soybean planting on June 28, as well as report quarterly grain and oilseed stocks. Farmers in the U.S., the world’s largest grower, will probably sow 95.4 million acres of land with corn, less than the 97.28 million predicted by the USDA in March, after rains disrupted field work, according to a Bloomberg survey.
“Traders are looking forward to the planted acreage report because the discussion on prevent planting and switching from corn to beans will be over,” Paul Georgy, president of Allendale Inc., wrote in a market comment. “Harvested acres will be the real number to watch as it will be considerably higher than last year for corn no matter what the planted acreage.”
Corn for delivery in December rose 0.6 percent to $5.50 a bushel at 5:54 a.m. on the Chicago Board of Trade. Volume was 31 percent below the average for the past 100 days for this time of day, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Futures fell 4.2 percent in the past three days.
“The market will not want to get too far ahead of itself ahead of Friday’s report,” Jaime Nolan-Miralles, a commodity risk manager at FCStone Commodity Services (Europe) in Dublin, wrote in an e-mailed reply to questions. “It’s customary noise in the market on what is a clear downward trend.”
Soybeans for November delivery gained 0.5 percent to $12.795 a bushel and wheat for September delivery rose 0.8 percent to $6.935 a bushel. Milling wheat for November delivery traded on NYSE Liffe in Paris advanced 0.9 percent to 198.25 euros ($260.26) a metric ton.
