Ethanol Blog

Ethanol futures took an aggressive turn lower Monday afternoon despite firm buyer support quickly stepping into both corn futures trade and the energy markets as traders returned from the weekend break.

With the Easter holiday weekend developing, traders are expected to exit the market early in the week as overall trade will likely remain sluggish. But the strong push lower in ethanol futures came as somewhat of a shock to the overall market which created a strong overall shift higher in nearly all other market sectors.

The fact that expected gasoline demand is growing and will push ethanol demand higher with it is creating some uncertainty about just how much overall market interest will take place during the next two weeks. But the stability in the ethanol complex through the last two months seems to have created some overall market weakness while gasoline markets have rallied higher at the same time.

This is seemingly drawing buyer interest out nearby ethanol contracts, and pushed April futures 3.5 cents per gallon lower, closing at $1.39 per gallon. At the same time, front-month April RBOB gasoline futures rallied 3.16 cents per gallon, closing at $1.4593 a gallon.

Rick Kment can be reached at rick.kment@dtn.com

(ES)

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