By Dwayne Klassen, Commodity News Service Canada
January 11, 2013
WINNIPEG – Canola futures on the ICE Canada trading platform settled Friday’s session mainly lower. Values traded on both sides of the plus/minus line during the day with late day strength coming from the buying back of previously sold positions and from sentiment that values were oversold, market watchers said.
Canola futures had started the day off on a weaker footing with liqht liquidation orders ahead of the release of the USDA supply/demand report at 11:00 CST behind some of the downward price action. Losses overnight in Malaysian palm oil and European rapeseed futures, as well as in CBOT soybean and soyoil futures further encouraged some of the downward price action, traders said.
Read Also
Canadian Financial Close: C$ firm Friday
Glacier FarmMedia — The Canadian dollar strengthened Friday, as dovish comments out of the United States Federal Reserve weighed on…
A drop off in exporter demand for Canadian canola contributed to the bearish sentiment in the commodity as did general firmness in the Canadian dollar Friday, brokers said.
However, once the USDA report was released, canola futures began to move to firmer ground. That push higher sparked the short-covering, traders said. Some of the buying that surfaced in canola also reflected steady domestic processor demand and indications that farmer deliveries of the commodity into the cash market had declined.
Continued concerns that supplies of canola are much tighter than what is being reported, also influenced some of the price gains. Those concerns were associated with the latest weekly statistics from the Canadian Grain Commission.
Canola, however, was unable to hold the upturn in values ahead of the close and turned mainly lower at the close. Profit-taking was tied in part to the inability of canola to hold the upside, traders said.
There were an estimated 9,942 canola contracts traded Friday, down from the 14,444 contracts that changed hands during the previous session. Of the contracts that changed hands, 4,718 were spread related.
No milling wheat, durum and barley contracts were traded.
Prices are in Canadian dollars per metric ton.
