CHICAGO, June 8 (Reuters) - Nearby Chicago Board of Trade corn futures ended higher on Monday, rebounding from life-of-contract lows as market players covered short positions and hunted for bargains ahead of a monthly crop supply-and-demand report due later this week from the Department of Agriculture, traders said.

• CBOT July corn CN26 settled up 1-1/4 cents at $4.18-2/4 per bushel, bouncing after hitting a contract low at $4.12-1/2 a bushel. The market has been in a steep slide since late May, pressured by improving U.S. crop weather and aggressive selling by managed commodity funds.

• CBOT new-crop December corn CZ26 ended Monday unchanged at $4.46 a bushel.

• Brisk export demand lent support. The USDA confirmed private sales of 103,000 metric tons of U.S. corn to Japan.

• Separately, the USDA reported export inspections of U.S. corn in the latest week at 1,911,112 metric tons, above a range of trade estimates for 1,200,000 to 1,900,000 tons. USDA/I

• Mostly favorable Midwest crop weather hung over the market, boosting production prospects.

• Ahead of the USDA's weekly crop progress report, analysts surveyed by Reuters on average expected the government to rate 69% of the nation's corn crop in good-to-excellent condition, up 2 percentage points from a week ago.

• Ahead of the USDA's June supply/demand report due Thursday, analysts surveyed by Reuters on average expected the agency to trim its forecasts of U.S. 2025/26 and 2026/27 corn ending stocks.

• Farmers in Brazil's center-south region harvested 4.4% of their 2026 second corn crop as of last Thursday, agribusiness consultancy AgRural said on Monday, up from 2.4% in the previous week and above the 1.9% reported a year earlier.