March corn opened 2 1/4 cents lower on the day at 346 and established an early range of 337 3/4 to 346 3/4. The March contract opened where the overnight session left off. Prices then moved substantially lower in the first minutes of trade on moderate selling by funds and locals. This took the March contract into new low ground for the move which is also new contract lows, and corn gained sharply on wheat. Mexico bought US corn for the third day in a row, 115,000 tonnes for 2008/09 and another 10,000 for next year. China has confirmed that it will buy an additional 5.0 million tonnes of corn for strategic reserves on top of a similar amount already announced. This is being done to support prices and has been widely expected. Selling today was said to result from lackluster export sales as well as reports of a bigger than expected corn crop in Germany which has traders in the EU looking for markets into which the surplus can be exported. This comes against a pattern of continued demand destruction caused by the world wide economic slowdown as well as the strong dollar, although the dollar moved sharply lower during the session today. Net weekly export sales for corn came in at 387,000 tonnes for the current marketing year and 5,000 for next year for a total of 392,000. Egypt was the biggest buyer at 120,000 tonnes. As of November 27, cumulative corn sales stood at 38.8% of the USDA forecast for 2008/2009 versus a 5 year average of 46.8%. Sales of 744,000 tonnes are needed each week to reach the USDA forecast.