Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) corn futures posted their strongest rally in six months on Monday after the United States, Mexico and Canada said they had reached a trilateral deal to replace NAFTA. The United States and Canada forged a last-gasp deal on Sunday to salvage NAFTA as a trilateral pact with Mexico.
Additional support stemmed from concerns that rainy weather in the central United States would delay the harvest. CBOT December corn jumped 9-1/2 cents to $3.65-3/4 per bushel. The 2.7 percent jump was the contract's largest percentage gain since March 29. Concerns about ample supplies of corn continue to hang over the market. The US Department of Agriculture on Friday pegged Sept. 1 corn stocks at 2.14 billion bushels, 6 percent above trade expectations.
US farmers are also harvesting another massive crop this autumn. The USDA is due to release weekly crop progress and condition ratings later on Monday. Analysts expect the corn harvest to be 26 percent done as of Sunday and crop ratings to remain unchanged. The supplement to the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission's weekly commitments report showed large speculators cut their net short position in CBOT corn by almost 30,000 contracts in the week to Sept. 25, to 146,501 lots.