July corn traded 2 3/4 cents lower overnight. The dollar was lower and crude oil was higher.

Corn broke again yesterday and made new lows for the week in both the July and December contracts overnight. Traders continue to say that weather is the reason for the break, with the latest rain system staying mostly to the south over the past 24-36 hours, putting rain in areas that are already largely planted. The outlook for the Corn Belt as a whole gets dry into Monday, when a band of showers should hit parts of the western Corn Belt. Traders are still expecting planting progress to be very rapid this week. The biggest 1-week advance came in 1992 at 43%, and there have been 11 times since 1980 when progress has been 30% or higher. Traders are looking for 30% or more this week. The USDA will issue its latest Export Sales Report this morning. Recent sales and inspections numbers in corn have been below trade expectations. The May futures contract expired yesterday. The Xinhua news agency in China reports that the death toll in the Sichuan province has reached 20,000 and they said that it could go as high as 50,000. Sichuan is a large pork producing area that pulls feed corn in from northwestern China.

The past 24 hours have seen widespread rain from the latest system to move through the central US. However, as expected this system has stayed to the south with moderate to heavy rains falling from central Texas into the Delta and mostly light to moderate rains extending through southern Illinois into Indiana over the past 24 hours. Oklahoma also received moderate rains overnight. Forecasts call for mostly dry conditions across all major growing areas over the next two days. Cooler than normal temperatures are expected over the next few days in the northern and western corn belt, along with most of the Great Plains. Cool temperatures should gradually shift to the east to cover most of the central and eastern Corn Belt from Tuesday through Saturday. The western Corn Belt should see normal temperatures at that time, with the extreme southwestern wheat belt trending above normal. A 48,000 tonne tender by an Israeli consortium has been postponed. No new tenders have been reported.

Weekly export sales for corn, released before the open today, came in at 547,200 metric tonnes for the current marketing year and 139,00 for the next marketing year for a total of 686,500 metric tonnes.