Corn futures at the Chicago Board of Trade leaped 5 percent to the highest level in a decade early on Thursday on fund buying tied to forecasts implying the US corn supply will shrink more next year than earlier estimates, traders and analysts said.
Traders said a large portion of the speculative buying of corn was stemming from the electronic e-cbot trading platform as funds and proprietary traders placed bets that corn prices will rise further amid brisk demand from the export, livestock and biofuels sectors.
At 10:31 am CST (1631 GMT), corn was up 5-1/2 to 15 cents per bushel, with December up 15 cents at $3.48-1/2 per bushel. The December contract surged its 20-cents-per-bushel trading limit to $3.53-1/2 at one point, but demand began waning at that level.