Corn futures on the Chicago Board of Trade ended higher on Wednesday for a second straight session on speculative buying at the start of a new month and prospects for increased use of corn for ethanol, traders said. CBOT May corn settled up 8-1/4 cents at $3.82 per bushel, near its session high of $3.82-1/4. Corn and other commodities are seen by some as undervalued relative to equities, especially as the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Wednesday crossed the 21,000 mark for the first time.
Traders are still sorting out prospects for changes in US government policy that could lift production of biofuels including corn-based ethanol, even though the White House on Tuesday denied that President Donald Trump planned to issue an executive order on the biofuels program.
The US Energy Information Administration said production of corn-based ethanol in the latest week was steady at 1.03 million barrels per day. Ethanol stocks rose to 23.09 million barrels. The CBOT reported no deliveries against March corn futures.