Corn futures on the Chicago Board of Trade were weak early on Thursday on active corn harvest in the United States and ahead of a key USDA crop report, traders said. "I think everyone is getting ready for tomorrow," a trader said referring the expected release early Friday of USDA's October crop production and supply/demand reports.
At 10:20 am CDT (1520 GMT), CBOT corn was down 1/2 to 6 cents per bushel, with December down 3 at $3.44-1/4 per bushel. An average of analysts' estimates pegged this year's US corn production at a record 13.466 billion bushels, up from the government's forecast in September for 13.308 billion and above the previous record of 11.8 billion bushels in 2004.
Export sales of US corn remain brisk and USDA on Thursday said exporters sold 103,632 tonnes of US corn to Japan. Also, Israel bought 100,000 tonnes of US corn and 40,000 tonnes of US corn products, European traders said on Thursday. Oat futures were down 2-1/2 to 2-3/4 cents per bushel, with December down 2-3/4 at $2.71-1/4 per bushel.