Hi gang!

With the holiday weekend coming up, maybe some of you will have time for some leisure reading. There was a nice report on corn in the news today, and in case you missed it, here are some of the highlights. I chose relevent bits and pieces and glued 'em together for you here. Hope you find it as relevant as I did.

Regards, Joe

Here we go!

CHICAGO (Dow Jones)--The amassment of speculative interest in commodity
markets has not only launched Chicago Board of Trade corn futures to record
open-interest levels, it also has propelled corn futures to the status as the
most-liquid physical commodity traded, based on open interest.

CBOT corn open interest currently stands at 1,045,210 contracts, just shy of
its record of 1,064,501 set Feb. 10.

Including financial contracts in the commodity arena, such as bonds and
eurodollars, corn also emerged as one the most liquid commodities overall.

It recently surpassed open interest in the highly touted sweet crude oil
futures contract at the New York Mercantile Exchange. Open interest in crude
oil stands at 926,564 contracts as of Feb. 14 based on data from Nymex.

The ability of corn to attract a huge amount of speculative fund buying in
the market has served as the spark to lead corn to record open-interest levels,
said Jack Scoville, analyst with the Price Futures Group in Chicago.

The allure of commodities as a viable alternative investment to
lower-yielding equity markets has attracted increased participation in recent
years from indexes that use commodities as an alternative asset class. Crude
oil and metals were the primary recipients of the boom, with agricultural
futures garnering their share of investment money in the past year. The impact
of this new-managed money in grain futures provides liquidity and volatility to
the market, analysts said.

To accommodate this new business the CBOT slowly increased position limits
last year, allowing the speculators more room to enter the grain markets.

From the point of view of the speculator, interest in alternative asset
classes for the purpose of diversifying investments has made corn an attractive
feature, with its many uses such as livestock feed, sweeteners and competitive
fuels projecting strong long range demand outlooks, said Scoville.

Inflation fears are driving a lot of interest into commodities with
mainstream media and others talking about alternative investments.

The liquidity of the market is seen as a plus, as the ability of large
participants to put in big orders without making dramatic price moves has some
people dubbing corn "the Eurodollar contract of the grain market." These small
price movements are also appealing to small investors as the vast liquidity
enables the market to absorb large trades without exposing participants to wide
price moves on a daily basis, analysts said.

Corn is the most visible of agricultural futures and a lot cheaper to trade
than crude oil, near $60 a barrel, as traders look to diversify within the
commodity sector. Analysts said for investors wanting to get exposure to
commodities, they can't just buy oil, sugar and gold; they need to diversify.
Based on the liquidity of corn, it has been able to absorb heavy volumes of
commodity index fund buying and still sustain a sideways trading pattern,
analysts said.

The big open interest is the sign of the times, with huge fund participation
and record ending stocks providing big hedging opportunities for commercials
and producers alike, said Dan Cekandar, analyst with Fimat Futures in Chicago.

The increased interest in alternative fuel sources and the growth potential
of corn-derived ethanol has brought increased attention to the market, with
traders watching to see if what happened to sugar futures at the New York Board
of Trade is on tap for corn futures. Sugar prices are just off 25-year highs as
top-producer Brazil funnels cane production to ethanol versus sweetener
production as it faces a smaller-than-expected crop.

Auto makers such as General Motors (GM) and Ford (F) are promoting their
fleet of E85-ready vehicles that run on ethanol blends, and with supportive
comments by President Bush on ethanol, corn futures are in line to reap the
benefits of increased ethanol production, analysts said.