South African Corn Advances by Most in Month
Category: Grains
(Businessweek) – South African yellow corn futures rose the most in more than a month after traders oversold contracts during the Christmas holiday.
Yellow corn for July, the most active contract, advanced 2.9 percent to 2,107 rand ($249) a metric ton on the South African Futures Exchange by the close in Johannesburg. That was the steepest intraday climb since Nov. 26. White corn, a staple food, gained 3.5 percent to 2,209 rand, the most since Oct. 1.
Yellow corn’s 14-day relative strength index was below 30 on Dec. 27 and Dec. 31, signaling to technical analysts that it’s undervalued and poised to rise. The RSI was 38.7 today.
“The price decline may be too far over the public holidays,” Brink van Wyk, a trader at BVG (Pty) Ltd., said by phone from Pretoria. “The price of corn declined sharply.”
Yellow corn, mainly used as animal feed, fell 14 percent in December, and white corn 13 percent. Corn on the Chicago Board of Trade slid more than 7 percent to its lowest rate since July.
South Africa is the continent’s largest producer of corn, or maize. It harvested 11.8 million tons in the season through July, according to the Pretoria-based Crop Estimates Committee.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jaco Visser in Johannesburg at avisser3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Viljoen at jviljoen@bloomberg.net
