By Glen Hallick, MarketsFarm
WINNIPEG, April 1 (MarketsFarm) – Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) canola futures were mostly higher on Friday in a week-ending session that proved to be quite volatile.
A trader said the specs were still attempting to push up canola, but it’s now quite overvalued. While he added such cannot be sustained, these high prices are a marvelous opportunity for crushers and farmers.
There was a good uptick in Chicago soyoil, as well as European rapeseed. However gains were tempered by significant drops in Chicago soybeans and soymeal, along with Malaysian palm oil.
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Also confronted with volatility today, global oil prices lost the little bit of traction they found earlier, only to turn slightly lower in the afternoon. That put some pressure on edible oils.
The Canadian dollar was lower at mid-afternoon, with the loonie at 79.89 U.S. cents, compared to Thursday’s close of 80.03.
There were 20,027 contracts traded on Friday, which compares with Thursday when 13,289 contracts changed hands. Spreading accounted for 13,992 contracts traded.
Settlement prices are in Canadian dollars per metric tonne.
Price Change
Canola May 1,133.90 up 3.50
Jul 1,105.50 dn 0.70
Nov 970.20 up 7.30
Jan 969.80 up 7.10
SOYBEAN futures at the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) were weaker on Friday, although soyoil climbed higher despite losses in soybeans and soymeal.
The United States Department of Agriculture released its fats and oils report, which showed 174 million bushels of soybeans were crushed in February. While a little bit below the average trade guess of 175.4 million bushels, the crush was 10 million bushels more than in February 2021. Production of refined soyoil came to 1.55 billion pounds, up seven per cent from a year ago.
On Monday, the USDA will publish its first weekly crop progress report of 2022.
Datagro dropped its call on the Brazil soybean harvest by four per cent at 125.1 million tonnes.
There were reports of frost in the Buenos Aires area overnight. So far there haven’t been any reports of damage to Argentina’s soybean crop.
CORN futures fell on Friday, as the seven-day weather forecast has called for broad precipitation for the U.S. Eastern Corn Belt. Meanwhile the Western Corn Belt is to remain drier.
The USDA issued its grain crushings report and 405 million bushels of corn were used for ethanol production in February. That’s a 22 per cent increase from a year ago.
The department announced a private sale of 136,000 tonnes of old crop corn to unknown destinations.
Rain is in the weekend forecast for Brazil, which would help its second corn crop.
WHEAT futures were also down sharply on Friday, due to pressure from soybeans and corn.
The general outlook for the U.S Northern and Southern Plains is to remain largely dry this spring.
Following talks hosted by Turkey this week, there’s very little hope for a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine anytime soon.
The Ukrainian Agrarian Confederation estimated there could be a 30 per cent drop in spring grain planting due to the war, and the associated shortages of fertilizer and fuel. The confederation also predicted a 20 per cent decline in winter wheat production for 2021/22, but that output would still be 3.9 more than in 2020/21.
France reported its wheat crop remained at 92 per cent good to excellent.
