Winnipeg canola on Wednesday gave back some of the gains made Tuesday when the weaker Canadian dollar helped drive up the oilseed’s price.
The loonie lost ground Tuesday when worries about Greece’s debt and about what the U.S. government would do to regulate Wall Street caused investors to retreat from riskier investments such as commodities and the Canadian dollar and move back to the American dollar.
The weaker loonie helped attract more demand for canola from export and domestic buyers, but that buying ran out of steam Wednesday.
Also Wednesday, snow and rain in dry parts of Alberta and forecasts of moisture across much of the Prairies in the coming days added to the weakness in the canola market.
The Winnipeg May canola contract fell $1.80 to $381.300 per tonne on 3,308 trades.
The previous day’s best basis was -$5.35 per tonne off the May contract in the par region, according to the Winnipeg ICE Futures daily report.
The 14-day Relative Strength Index for May canola was 53, according to BarChart.com. The rule of thumb is that an RSI of 30 indicates an oversold market and 70 indicates overbought.
July canola fell $2.30 to $388.20 on 12,282 trades.
New crop November fell $2.30 to $390.60 per tonne on 3,490 trades.
The Canadian dollar at noon was 98.74 cents US, up from 98.30 cents at noon the previous trading day. The U.S. dollar at noon was $1.0128 Cdn.
Winnipeg barley contracts were untraded. May was steady at $151.10 per tonne. There is no open interest in the May contract. July was steady at $145.50. December was steady at $150.
Chicago May soybeans were unchanged at $9.8275 US per bushel. November soybeans rose 3.75 cents to $9.655 per bu.
May oats fell one cent to $2 per bu.
Light crude oil for June delivery rose 78 cents to $83.22 US per barrel.
U.S. corn futures gained nearly three percent Wednesday when China bought American corn for the first time in four years.
The price increase reversed a general downward trend that had been fueled by record fast corn seeding in the U.S. Midwest.
Analysts were uncertain whether China would buy more corn. Last year’s corn crop in China was smaller than first reported and there are worries about the seeding pace this year because of cold, damp weather in key growing regions in the country’s north.
