Corn Futures Leading the Grain Drop into Friday’s Day Trade

Corn is working 2.8% to 3.3% in the red so far and leading the grain markets drop into the day session. Options expiration takes place at the close today, with the $6.50-$6.40 pin as the most likely play. CME data shows the most active calls into today’s trade were 660s and 680s, as the OI favors the 600P with action in 610 620, and 630s. CME data also showed 41.4k new options were opened across the non-July contracts, with the most action in the Sep 410P, Sep 450P, and Dec 580P. Yesterday, corn futures paused their bull run and took some premium back out of the market on Thursday. Futures were mostly 7 cents off their session lows but still down by 6 1/2 to 10 1/2 cents for the day.  Preliminary open interest showed long liquidation, down 2,034 contracts overall, and down 11,675 in front month July. 

Ahead of the weekly Export Sales report, traders are looking for old crop corn bookings between net zero and 600k MT. New crop business for the week that ended 6/15 is expected to be below 200k MT. 

Weekly EIA data confirmed ethanol producers averaged 1.052 million barrels per day through the week that ended 6/16. That was a 28-wk high and up 34k bpd from the week prior. Ethanol stocks were up by 578k barrels to 22.8 million.  

Survey responses show traders expect Canadian corn area to be 3.7 million acres in the upcoming Stats Canada report, compared to 3.62m last year. 

Jul 23 Corn  closed at $6.60 1/2, down 10 1/2 cents, currently down 17 cents

Nearby Cash   was $6.59 3/8, down 11 cents,

Sep 23 Corn  closed at $6.17, down 6 1/2 cents, currently down 20 1/2 cents

Dec 23 Corn  closed at $6.20 3/4, down 8 cents, currently down 19 3/4 cents