(Businessweek) – Corn declined for a sixth day, the worst run in seven months, before the release of a U.S. government report on planting estimates for a record crop in the world’s largest grower. Wheat gained.
Corn for delivery in December fell as much as 0.5 percent to $5.4125 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade, and was at $5.4175 at 11:55 a.m. in Singapore on volume that was 33 percent below the 100-day average for that time of day. A sixth day of decline would be the worst streak for the contract since Nov. 15.
Corn probably was sown on 95.431 million acres, or 1.9 percent less than the 97.282 million farmers intended in March, a Bloomberg survey showed. Yields may average 156 bushels an acre this year, the third-highest on record, said Bill Gary, the president of Commodity Information Systems in Oklahoma City, a company providing analysis and information to traders. That would boost production to an all-time high of 13.62 billion bushels from 10.78 billion bushels last year, he said.
“The expectations are mostly priced in already,” Tetsu Emori, a commodity fund manager at Astmax Asset Management Inc., said by phone from Tokyo today. “People are waiting for the official data,” delaying purchases, he said.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is scheduled to release its planting estimates, based on a national survey of growers, tomorrow at 12 p.m. in Washington.
The supply situation in the U.S. will remain at a“comfortable level,” even if the USDA report matches Morgan Stanley’s forecast of 94 million acres, the bank’s analysts including Bennett Meier, wrote in a report yesterday.
Soybeans for November delivery lost as much as 0.4 percent to $12.7075 a bushel in Chicago, before trading at $12.7575. Wheat for September delivery rose 0.2 percent to $6.785 a bushel.
