By Phil Franz-Warkentin, Commodity News Service Canada
WINNIPEG, July 24 (CNS Canada) – ICE Futures Canada canola contracts were down sharply at midday Monday, as losses in the Chicago Board of Trade soy complex and strength in the Canadian dollar weighed on values.
Fund traders were holding large long positions of roughly 30,000 contracts heading into Monday’s session, and long liquidation and speculative selling accounted for some of the weakness as some stops were hit on the way down.
The Canadian dollar touched 80 US cents, hitting its highest levels in two years relative to its US counterpart, which makes exports less attractive to international buyers.
While some scale-down buying interest was coming forward, a broker said export demand was non-existent for the most part right now.
Declining crop conditions in Alberta were supportive, although weather conditions were reportedly seeing some improvement across North America on the whole.
About 9,300 canola contracts had traded as of 10:43 CDT.
Milling wheat, durum, and barley futures were all untraded and unchanged.
