Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) corn futures closed modestly higher on Thursday, with the spot contract nearing its highest level in a year on worries about potentially stressful dry and hot weather in the US Corn Belt, traders said. Futures pared gains and even dipped lower toward the close on profit-taking and farmer selling. The benchmark CBOT July corn futures contract settled up 1 cent at $3.85-3/4 per bushel after reaching $3.91-3/4, the highest spot corn price on a continuous chart since June 28, 2016.
Forecasts called for temperatures in the central Midwest and northern Plains to reach the mid-90s Fahrenheit (34-36 degrees Celsius) Sunday through Tuesday, and parts of South Dakota could reach 100 F (38 C), said Joel Widenor, an agricultural meteorologist with the Commodity Weather Group. Traders shrugged at lower-than-expected weekly US export sales totalling 476,600 tonnes (old and new crop years combined).