Société Générale Down of the Farm: Partial to Corn, Hogs

From Agrimoney:
SocGen backs corn, hogs as exodus from ags ends

Societe Generale said it was "mildly bullish" on values of agricultural commodities, particularly corn and lean hogs, after flagging an end of a nine-month exodus of funds from the sector.

Investments in agricultural-based exchange traded products (ETPs) stuck at $5.0bn in January, the first month without outflows since March last year, the bank said.

The withdrawals since April claimed nearly one-third of assets held in farm ETPs, the biggest decline in any of the commodity classes, by proportion.

Precious metals enjoyed net inflows of $13.5bn, or 9.3%, over the period,

And SocGen raised hopes for farm commodities to continue to be viewed with less distaste, recommending commodity investors take "overweight" stances in both the livestock and grains-oilseeds segments, if attributing soft commodities a neutral rating.

"We remain mildly bullish agriculture," SocGen analyst Jeremy Friesen said, flagging the sector's "demand resilient" charactersistics.

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Corn had a particularly strong short-term outlook, Mr Friesen said, warning that although the US ethanol market had weakened, setbacks from the disruptive La Nina weather pattern "are still being under-appreciated by the market"....MORE