Chicago Board of Trade corn futures rose on Wednesday on bargain-buying ahead of a U.S. holiday weekend and bullish quarterly U.S. stocks data released a day earlier, traders said.
Commodity funds held a modest net short position in CBOT corn futures as of June 23, leaving the market vulnerable to short-covering rallies, particularly ahead of a long weekend.
U.S. markets will be closed on Friday in observance of the Independence Day holiday.
CBOT September corn (CU26) settled up 6 cents at $4.22-3/4 per bushel, and new-crop December corn (CZ26) ended up 6-1/4 cents at $4.42-1/4 a bushel.
Both contracts set life-of-contract lows on Tuesday before rallying.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's quarterly stocks report on Tuesday pegged U.S. June 1 corn stocks at 5.295 billion bushels, up from a year earlier but below the range of analyst estimates.
Traders were monitoring hot weather across the U.S. Midwest this week, though widespread showers and easing heat into next week were expected to limit stress on crops.
Ahead of the USDA's weekly export sales report on Thursday, traders expected the agency to report net sales of U.S. old-crop corn in the week ended June 25 at up to 1.1 million metric tons and net new-crop sales also up to 1.1 million tons.
The CBOT reported 325 deliveries against the July (CN26) futures contract, with no strong commercial stoppers.