From Bloomberg:
Corn Heads for Bear Market as Stockpiles Beat Estimates
Corn prices headed for a bear market as bigger-than-expected stockpiles and higher planting signal ample supplies in the U.S., the world’s top grower and exporter. Wheat fell to a nine-month low, and soybeans tumbled.
U.S. corn inventories on March 1 totaled 5.399 billion bushels, the Department of Agriculture said March 28. While down from a year earlier, that’s still above the 4.995 billion forecast by analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. Farmers will plant 97.282 million acres this year, the most since 1936, the USDA said. Prices reached the lowest since July today.
After last year’s drought cut U.S. output by 13 percent and sent futures to a record, demand slowed as high grain costs forced livestock producers including Cargill Inc. to close beef plants, while ethanol producers including Poet LLC shut distilleries. Lower prices may further erode global food costs that fell for a fifth month in February, according to a gauge compiled by the United Nations’ Food & Agriculture Organization.
Last week’s USDA report “has taken us from scarce supplies to adequate supplies,” Rich Feltes, vice president of research for R.J. O’Brien & Associates in Chicago, said in a telephone interview. “This was a game-changer. It’ll take a week or more before this is totally discounted into the price.”
Corn futures for May delivery tumbled 5.4 percent to $6.5775 a bushel at 9:41 a.m. on the Chicago Board of Trade, after reaching $6.515, the lowest for a most-active contract since July 2. Trading was more than triple the average of the past 100 days. On March 28, the grain plunged by the 40-cent limit after the USDA report....MORE
FinViz
See also, Friday's "Corn Hammered Limit Down on Stocks/Intentions Report".
