Corn: So What Happens With Ethanol Now?

	Last	Chg
Corn	364-2	-2-0
Soybeans	1051-6	-3-4
Wheat	424-0	-0-4

From Agrimoney:

AM markets: corn leads easing in grains, amid biofuels fears

For followers of charts, Monday brought an interesting visitor to the Chicago corn market, in the form of a so-called "doji star".

It is a pattern which occurs when an asset closes at the same price as it began the session, and after exploring both upward and downward movement – ending up drawing on the chart a "cross", which is the doji star.

And what it signals, is well…

"This technical pattern is usually a signal of indecision, especially after a well-established trend," said Tregg Cronin at Halo Commodity Company.

"Buyers really aren't sure if they want to continue pushing price in the same direction," which for corn would have meant extending an upward trend.

'Wall of farmer selling'

Still, corn was the one contract in Chicago in which investors appeared, relatively, decisive in early deals on Thursday, pushing the March contract lower, by 0.3% to $3.65 ¼ a bushel as of 09:00 UK time (03:00 Chicago time).

Producer selling appears to be a weight on a market which, with Argentine and Brazil weather concerns on the backburner for now, is finding upward traction less hard to come by.

"Corn seems as though it ran into a wall of farmer selling as we hit $3.70 a bushel," Halo's Tregg Cronin said.

"Any longs who were late to the party are going to be sweating those positions", now futures are lower, he added.

'Very large build in stocks'

Worries are also coming in from the US ethanol market, which has been a source of unexpectedly firm demand for corn (and sorghum, for that matter).

In fact, ethanol production remains strong, with data on Wednesday showing output last week at 1.05m barrels a day – down 3,000 barrels a day week on week, but still close to the record high.

The worry is how long that will continue, with the output not appearing to be finding much demand, with stocks last week soaring again, this time by 613,000 barrels to 21.73m barrels, their highest since May last year....

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