Corn was on a solid run earlier this week. Prices moved up pretty nicely with futures closing Thursday up 6 to almost 10 cents, and Friday morning saw another 2 to 5 cents added on top of that. Crude oil rallying hard helped push things along - that usually spills over into grain markets. Open interest jumped 45,500 contracts, which suggested real buying interest behind the move.

The export numbers that came out were actually pretty impressive for corn. Old crop sales hit 2.02 million metric tons for the week of February 26 - nearly triple the week before and way more than the same period last year. South Korea was the main buyer, but Colombia and Mexico picked up solid volumes too. New crop corn business was smaller at 154,000 MT but all went to Japan.

On the supply side, Brazil shipped out 1.55 million metric tons in February, up about 9% year-over-year but still well below what they moved in January. Argentina's harvest was barely getting started at 7.2% done, with estimates holding at 57 million metric tons for the crop. Canada was planning to plant 3.846 million acres of corn, up 1.7% if those intentions actually materialize.

Mar corn closed that Thursday session at $4.41 1/2, up 9 3/4 cents. May corn was at $4.53 1/2 and July hit $4.62 3/4. The cash market kept pace, averaging $4.12 3/4 nationally. Definitely a market with some momentum to it.