Agrimoney – Hedge funds cut their bullish positioning on corn futures by the second largest amount on record, after the US stunned markets by showing its stocks of the grain larger than expected.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the market regulator, highlighted the extent of the liquidation by showing that the net long position amongst managed money positions, a proxy for speculators, dropped by a huge 98,246 lots in the week to April 2.
The drop in the net long – the level to which long bets, which gain when prices rise, outnumber short ones, which profit when prices fall – was the second largest weekly drop on data going back to 2006.
The sell-off followed a US Department of Agriculture report showing corn inventories 400m bushels higher as of March 1 than investors had expected.
