Commodities, including agricultural ones, staged a - temporary - comeback on Friday, helped by a better-than-expected US jobs report, although the revival was undermined in late deals by talk of moves by Greece to ditch the euro.

The US created 244,000 jobs last month, excluding the seasonal data from the agriculture sector, more than the 186,000 economists had forecast, official data showed.

The report, for a while, revived confidence in riskier assets, sparking a rebound in stock markets, with London's FTSE 100 index up 1.0% in late deals, and US stocks gaining 1.3%. Shares in CF Industries were among Wall Street's leaders, up 9% at one stage, after the fertilizer group reported better-than expected results.

However, the revival faltered on a report on the website of Der Spiegel, the German newspaper, of moves in train to remove debt-laden Greece from the eurozone, news which - while denied by officials - sent the dollar soaring.

Rebound ahead?

The late decline belied some more upbeat comment from analysts on prospects for commodities.

For oil, a 9% slump on Thursday "has likely removed a large portion of the risk premium that we believe has been embedded in oil prices, which could suggest further downside may be limited from here", said Goldman, which rattled nerves among commodity investors last month with a warning on prices.

"It is important to emphasise that even as oil prices are pulling back from their recent highs, we expect them to return to or surpass the recent highs by next year."

At Barclays Capital, Kevin Norrish said: "We see the price move as a repeat of the pattern seen several times... when markets have become fixated by macro-economic risks despite plenty of evidence that the environment remains a very positive one for commodity fundamentals.

"In our view, the current sell-off represents a potential buying opportunity particularly in those markets that we currently favour," naming corn among preferred assets.

Sowing progress

However, corn proved one of the commodity sector's worst peformers, depressed by the prospect of drier weather in the US Corn Belt allowing farmers to catch up on sowings.

"We must also remember that the technology is vastly better now," a briefing from Paragon Economics and Steiner Consulting said.

"Huge planters cover large swathes of ground on each pass. Global positioning systems allow around-the-clock planting."

Chicago's best-traded July corn contract closed 3.2% at $6.86 ¼ a bushel.

'Not married to bearishness' 

However, July wheat rebounded 0.7% to $7.59 ½ a bushel in Chicago and 2.0% to $8.74 a bushel in Kansas City.

"There are likely plenty of shorts that will take money off the table while weak longs seem to have eased their exodus," Matthew Pierce at PitGuru said.

And, among soft commodities, cocoa, the worst performer on Thursday, recovered 0.9% to $3,082 a tonne for July delivery.

Darren Dohme at Powerline Group said: "We have probably seen the majority of [the correction], but would expect to at least test the downside a few more times before prices fully stabilise."