Corn futures have been showing some interesting movement lately. Prices ticked up a couple cents this morning after taking losses the previous day, with most contracts down around 2-3 cents. Cash prices are hovering around 4.02, down a bit from earlier in the week. I've been watching the export sales data pretty closely - analysts were expecting old crop sales somewhere in the 0.6 to 1.6 million metric ton range, and there was that private sale of 154,000 MT to Japan that caught attention.

Ethanol production has been cooling off too. EIA data showed production at about 1.095 million barrels per day, which was down 18,000 bpd from the week before. Ethanol stocks built up though, hitting 26.337 million barrels. Export demand picked up slightly to 217,000 bpd. Looking at the futures, March corn closed down 2.5 cents at 4.31 3/4, May was down 2.75 cents at 4.43 3/4, and July down 2 cents at 4.53 1/2. If you're following commodity markets, this kind of price action usually tells you something about supply expectations and demand trends. Open interest was down pretty noticeably too, which sometimes signals traders are taking profits or rotating positions.