Chicago Board of Trade corn futures were expected to open 4 to 6 cents a bushel higher on Thursday, buoyed by export demand and the weak dollar as well as carryover buying from unwinding wheat/corn spreads. Overnight screen trends in corn were 4-6 cents higher with benchmark December up 5-3/4 cents at $3.64 and March up 5-1/4 cents at $3.80.
Corn is facing hedge pressure from excellent yields as harvest gains momentum and moves into the main US Corn Belt with record production forecast. On Thursday morning, USDA said exporters booked another 198,000 tonnes of corn to Mexico overnight. It also reported weekly US export sales of 2,032,300 tonnes - 95 percent higher than the prior week. That included 766,000 tonnes sold to Mexico before the latest business announced on Thursday.
Shipments of 874,100 tonnes were 26 percent above the prior week. The harvest is increasing with no major disruptions expected. Some frost and light freeze conditions in the north over the past weekend were of little concern now.