Corn futures on the Chicago Board of Trade closed lower on Friday, with the March contract touching a 2-1/2-week low on fund long liquidation and lower-than-expected weekly export sales, traders said. CBOT March corn settled down 1-1/2 cents at $3.64 per bushel after dipping to $3.62-1/2, its lowest since February 7. For the week, the contract fell 4-1/4 cents or 1.2 percent.
Open interest in CBOT corn futures plunged by more than 29,000 contracts on Thursday as prices fell, an indication of traders exiting long positions. The US Department of Agriculture reported weekly export sales of old-crop US corn at 743,100 tonnes and sales of new-crop corn at 264,600 tonnes, both below trade expectations. The USDA at its annual outlook forum projected US corn production for marketing year 2017/18 at 14.065 billion bushels, down 7 percent from the previous year, and ending stocks down 5 percent at 2.215 billion bushels.
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