By Dwayne Klassen, Commodity News Service Canada
March 20, 2013
WINNIPEG – Canola futures on the ICE Canada trading platform finished Wednesday’s session on a mainly firmer footing with support throughout the session coming from the advances in the outside oilseed sector, market watchers said. The nearby May and July contracts were down while the remainder of the months were up.
Advances were posted in Malaysian palm oil and European rapeseed futures overnight as well as in the CBOT soybean complex Wednesday, which provided some early strength to canola.
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The deferred canola futures found additional support from increased concerns about seeding delays in western Canada due to excessive soil moisture conditions and the cool temperatures that have been forecast for the Canadian prairies, brokers said. There were ideas that planting of the canola crop was already two weeks behind based on current conditions.
Some light commercial demand, said to be pricing some export business and minor domestic crusher needs, helped to underpin canola values, traders said.
Farmer deliveries of canola into the cash pipeline have also slowed, which contributed some small support to values, brokers said.
The upside in canola was restricted by sentiment that values were overpriced and were in need of a correction to the downside. The taking of profits at the highs of the day also tempered some of the price strength. The upswing in the value of the Canadian dollar was also viewed as an undermining price influence.
The strength in canola was also limited by the advancing harvest of a record sized soybean crop in South America.
There were an estimated 8,567 canola contracts traded Wednesday, down from the 13,523 contracts that changed hands during the previous session.
No milling wheat, durum or barley contracts were traded during the session.
Prices are in Canadian dollars per metric ton.
