The front month corn futures were near their highs for the close with a nickel gain for both the March and the May contracts. The new crop futures also closed higher on the day, though by 2 to 3 ½ cents. May is sitting at a net weekly gain of 13 ½ cents so far. 

Traders are looking for the weekly FAS report to show between 600k MT and 1.2 MMT of old crop corn bookings for the week that ended 2/22. New crop sales are estimated to be as high as 150k MT for the week. 

Taiwan is tendering for up to 65k MT of corn. Wire sources had China booking at least 240k MT of Ukrainian corn with no tender. Brazil’s Anec has Feb corn shipments near 716.7k MT for the month which matched their prior expectation. 

EIA reported ethanol producers averaged 1.078 million barrels of output per day through the week that ended 2/23. That was down from 1.084m bpd for the week prior. Ethanol stocks increased by 520k barrels for the week to 26.022 million barrels. 

AgRural reported Brazil’s corn planting at 73% for second crop, which is up from 59% last week and compares to 56% at the same time last year. First crop harvest reached 42% complete as of 2/22, which remains ahead of the 27% pace last year. 

Mar 24 Corn  closed at $4.13 1/4, up 5 cents,

Nearby Cash   was $3.97 1/1, up 5 1/2 cents,

May 24 Corn  closed at $4.28 1/2, up 5 cents,

Jul 24 Corn  closed at $4.40 1/4, up 4 1/4 cents,