(Bloomberg) – Corn dropped for a seventh day to a three-year low on speculation that the U.S. government will increase its production estimate for the domestic crop tomorrow.
Corn for December delivery lost as much as 0.2 percent to $4.2025 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade, the lowest price for a most-active contract since Aug. 25, 2010. Futures traded at $4.205 by 11:10 a.m. Singapore time. A seventh day of declines would be the worst run since July.
The grain has slumped 40 percent this year as output in the U.S., the world’s biggest grower, recovers from the country’s most-severe drought since the 1930s last year. The harvest may reach a record 14.029 billion bushels, or 1.3 percent more than the Department of Agriculture’s prediction in September and 30 percent larger than in 2012, according to a Bloomberg survey of 36 analysts.
“Expectations that the USDA will make a sizable upward revision towards U.S. corn crop estimates has been the primary factor weighing on that market,” Luke Mathews, a commodity strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, said by phone from Sydney. “The market is certainly wanting to sit on its hands and square off positions and await the USDA report.”
Wheat for December delivery was little changed at $6.53 a bushel. Soybeans for January delivery gained 0.1 percent to $12.5675 a bushel, climbing for a second day.
