Chicago Board of Trade corn futures climbed for the third time in four sessions on Monday as worries over poor crop weather in South America triggered short-covering, traders said. Benchmark March corn settled 2-1/4 cents higher at $3.58-3/4 a bushel, the highest since December 4. The contract climbed above its 100-day moving average around $3.57-1/2, which fuelled technical buying.

Large US and global feed grain supplies capped further gains. Rainy weather this week is stalling soybean harvesting in Brazil, which could delay seeding of the country's large winter corn crop.

Drought-hit Argentina received minimal rain over the weekend, and most crop areas are seen remaining hot and dry over the next two weeks, meteorologists said. The harsh weather is expected to reduce Argentina's corn crop this season. Commodity funds hold a large net short position in CBOT corn, leaving the market prone to short-covering rallies. The supplement to the CFTC's weekly commitments report showed large speculators reduced their net short position in CBOT corn by about 10,000 contracts in the week to January 23, to 248,041 lots.

The US Department of Agriculture on Monday said private exporters sold 115,000 tonnes of US corn to Egypt for 2017/18 delivery.

Copyright Reuters, 2018