From Agrimoney:
Hedge
funds turned their most bullish on agricultural commodities for three
years, as they flocked to bet on higher grain prices amid the mounting
tensions over Ukraine, and raised the stakes on the sugar rally too.
Managed
money, a proxy for speculators, raised its net long position in futures
and options in the top 13 US-traded agricultural commodities, by more
than 133,000 contracts in the week to last Tuesday, according to data
from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) regulator.
The
increase took the net long in these commodities, from cotton to cattle,
above 1.0m contracts for the first time since March 2011.
And
the gain was fuelled by a dash to bet on higher grain prices amid
concerns over the Ukraine, a major exporter of corn and wheat, besides
fears over US weather, deemed too dry in many areas for winter wheat
emerging from dormancy, and too cold to enable speedy corn germination.
'Significant structural changes'
In
Chicago corn, hedge funds raised their net long position by more than
51,000 contracts to 209,561 lots, the highest since December 2012, when
the hangover from the drought-hit US harvest was still supporting
prices.
Managed
money has now lifted its net long position in corn by more than 175,000
contracts in a month, the second-biggest for any four-week period,
behind only that seen in July 2010 when Russian drought sent grain
prices soaring.
In
Chicago wheat, hedge funds turned net long for the first time since
October, fuelling the rally which has sent prices to the four-month
highs.
The
CFTC report "drives home the significant structural changes taking
place in the wheat market", Jonathan Watters at Benson Quinn Commodities
said....MORE
The news was greeted by the most across the board declines we've seen in a while: