Corn up 2.9 percent

US corn and wheat futures rallied on Wednesday on a bargain-buying bounce after prices fell to multiweek lows earlier this week, traders said. Soyabean futures also rose, following the strength in grains, with the front-month contract gaining 1.1 percent on speculative buying, its fifth straight day of gains despite weakness in the cash market.
Chicago Board of Trade corn notched the biggest increase, 2.9 percent, receiving additional support from export sales to China and signs of burgeoning ethanol demand. Prices for the benchmark July contract broke through key resistance points, such as its 50-day moving average. "All we are seeing here right now is a little bit of technical recovery," said Karl Setzer, a commodity trading adviser at MaxYield Co-operative in West Bend, Iowa.
CBOT July corn futures settled up 18-1/2 cents at $6.58-1/2 a bushel, while CBOT July wheat was 8 cents higher at $6.88-1/2 a bushel. On Tuesday, CBOT corn hit its lowest price since April 8 on a continuous basis, while wheat dropped to its lowest level since April 3. CBOT July soyabeans were up 16 cents at $14.94-1/4 a bushel. The July contract peaked at $14.95, its highest since October 1. Private exporters reported the sale of 360,000 tonnes of US corn to China, the US Agriculture Department said on Wednesday morning. Another 180,000 tonnes was sold to an unidentified buyer which traders said was likely China since it is the only country that typically buys such large quantities at one time.
The US Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday that weekly US ethanol output rose 18,000 barrels per day to 875,0000 barrels and stocks fell to 16.19 million barrels. "Getting those corn sales this morning to China basically gave us a really good value level that says the world has an appetite at these price levels," said Bill Gentry, a broker at Risk Management Commodities in Lafayette, Indiana.
"We got an additional boost when we got the ethanol numbers." Lingering concerns about crop development this summer added support to corn, even after US farmers' most active planting week ever allowed them to finish the bulk of their corn seeding. USDA pegged corn planting at 71 percent complete as of Sunday, up from 28 percent a week earlier. Still, much of the corn was seeded after May 15. That raises the risk of the crop pollinating this summer under the stress of high temperatures, which could reduce yields.