The USDA published 2 major reports on quarterly grain stocks and planting intentions on March 30th 2012.
As of March 1st 2012, the corn stocks were estimated at 6.01 million bushels (less than expected). This factor instantly pushed the prices up.
As for the planting intentions report, analysts anticipated 93.7-95.7 million acres. However, the report exceeded their expectations by 4%, thus reaching 95.9M acres.
In longer-term perspective, this factor should become a bearish factor. At this point, scantier reserves keep outweighing the desire to expand the planting areas.
According to the Commodity Trading Department, seasonality will force the prices into fluctuating within a price range till summer.
