By Dwayne Klassen, Commodity News Service Canada
April 12, 2013
WINNIPEG – Canola futures on the ICE Canada trading platform finished Friday’s session mainly lower after flirting with both gains and losses during the day. The taking of profits and the downturn experienced in CBOT soyoil futures encouraged some of the downward price action seen in canola, market watchers said.
The rolling of positions out of the nearby May contract and into the July future was a feature of the activity and generated much of the volume total.
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Some of the upward price push in canola seen during the day came from light commercial demand, believed to be covering old export business. The absence of farmer deliveries of canola into the cash pipeline in western Canada also influenced some of the price strength, brokers said.
Concerns about tight old crop canola stocks further lifted values as did concerns about seeding delays this spring across the Canadian prairies due to excessively wet and cold weather conditions.
A drop off in domestic crusher demand was viewed as bearish for values with the losses in CBOT soyoil also encouraging some selling interest.
The taking of profits ahead of the weekend added to the price weakness in canola as did sentiment that values were overbought and in need of a correction to the downside, brokers said.
There were an estimated 20,779 canola contracts traded Friday, down from the 21,036 contracts that changed hands during the previous session. Of the contracts traded, 15,948 were spread related.
No milling wheat, durum or barley contracts were traded during the session.
Prices are in Canadian dollars per metric ton.
