December corn was 2 1/2 cents lower overnight. Weaker crude oil and stock markets overnight pressured.

Corn suffered a late break yesterday as rallies failed in crude oil and stocks. Funds had been buyers early in the day according to floor traders, but they turned light sellers late in the session along with locals who were said to be taking profits. The latest Crop Progress Report shows corn harvest progress at only 21% as of Sunday. This is at the low end of expectations, although traders reported yesterday that these expectations had dropped considerably as the session wore on. Crop conditions are finishing up at 62% good/excellent. This is almost exactly at the rate for last year and for the 10-year average. Export inspections came in at 29.1 million bushels this week. Cumulative inspections stand at 9.7% of the projected total for 2008/09, just below the 5-year average of 11.1%, but traders said that this is a fair-to-good level considering the lateness of the harvest this year. Inspections need to average 38.6 million each week to reach the projected total for the marketing year in corn. The Agriculture Secretariat in Argentina put corn planting progress there at 20% yesterday compared to 41% last year. Progress has been slow due to dry weather. Rains over the past week have improved conditions, but acreage planted to corn is still expected to be sharply lower in Argentina this year. France released its latest corn estimate at 15.1 million tonnes today, up 200,000 tonnes versus last month's estimate. The Gulf was said to be quiet yesterday with steady basis levels and light farmer selling.

Rain is expected today north of a line running from about Cleveland to St. Louis. This is expected to push through the remainder of the eastern and SE corn and soybean growing areas tomorrow bringing lower temperatures and a slight chance of frost in the north. Traders report that Malaysia bought about 60,000 tonnes of corn from Argentina.