Chicago Board of Trade corn futures ended fractionally lower on Thursday on technical selling and spillover weakness from wheat. CBOT July corn settled down 3/4 cent at $4.02 per bushel. Market drew underlying support from the US Department of Agriculture's forecast for global corn stocks to fall to 159.15 million tonnes by the end of the 2018/19 marketing year, below a range of trade expectations.
The USDA in a monthly report left its 2017/18 US corn ending stocks forecast unchanged at 2.182 billion bushels. The USDA projected 2018/19 US corn ending stocks at 1.682 billion bushels, above the average trade estimate of 1.628 billion.
The USDA reported export sales of US corn in the week to May 3 at 785,600 tonnes (old and new crop years combined), at the low end of trade expectations.