Pre-Opening Corn Market Report for 4/18/2012

May corn was trading 1 1/4 cents lower late in the overnight session. China futures were unchanged overnight. Outside market forces look slightly negative with a strong US dollar and weakness in metal and equity markets. The lack of a surprise in the weekly crop updates and a continued long liquidation stance led by the old crop contracts helped to provide some light selling pressures overnight. While soybeans are under pressure, traders see corn as getting a little too cheap on the set-back with July back down to near the level seen ahead of the supportive March 1st stocks report from the USDA. A lack of new buying from China on the set-back and ideas that cheap wheat, strong corn cash basis and inverted spread activity are all factors which might help ration old crop supply are all seen as factors to spark the selling. In addition, traders see corn plantings at or near a record pace by the end of the month which has some traders boosting up planted area and yield for the new crop supply/demand outlook. The weekly Corn Planting report showed that 17% of the crop is planted compared to 7% last week and 5% last year. The 10 year average for this time of year is 7%. The highest percent complete prior to this year was 14% in 2004. Illinois was 41% complete as compared with 6% as the 5-year average. May corn pushed moderately higher on the session yesterday early in the day with the other grains but long liquidation selling emerged to drive the market moderately lower on the day into the close to push to the lowest level since March 30th and to the lowest close since March 29th. Weekly export inspections came in better than expected. Traders see the weather as a mostly negative force. While the recent wet weather could slow the planting progress some, the 6-10 day outlook remains warm and drier than normal and this should help support active planting and good early growing conditions for the crop already in the ground. May corn is now down as much as 49 1/4 cents off of last week's highs. South Korea bought 65,000 tonnes of optional origin corn.