By Glen Hallick, MarketsFarm
WINNIPEG, March 21 (MarketsFarm) – ICE Futures canola contracts made strong gains at the end of trading on Thursday.
The Canadian dollar remained under 75 U.S. cents for most of Thursday, as lower crude oil prices weighed on values. The slide in the dollar was not felt until late in trading. Changes in the loonie often do not move canola bids right away, but take a little bit of time, according to a trader.
The technical bias continued to point to the upside, and canola remained competitive with vegetable oils, which provided support.
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An ongoing lack of export demand from China continued to temper gains in canola prices. Until the spat between Canada and China is resolved, and the United States and China sign a trade deal, canola exports are not expected to pick up anytime soon.
SOYBEAN futures at the Chicago Board of Trade were stronger on Thursday.
United States President Donald Trump commented the U.S. might keep tariffs in place on Chinese imports, as a means to assure China abides by any trade deal between the two countries.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture released its weekly export sales report Thursday. For the week of March 8 to 14, corn exports were almost 856,000 tonnes, and wheat exports were at 437, 000 tonnes. Soybean exports were close to 400,000 tonnes for the week.
CORN futures were stronger on Thursday.
Flooding in the U.S. has continued to take its toll. There is severe flooding in a number of U.S. states, including Nebraska, Missouri, Iowa and Kansas. Flood damages in Nebraska alone have now climbed to $1.5 billion this week.
The wet conditions could see U.S. farmers switch their planting intentions from corn to soybeans.
Also, flooding has impacted grain transportation in the U.S. Cumulative carloads so far in 2019 are down four per cent, to about 233,000.
WHEAT futures were mixed on Thursday. Chicago and Kansas City wheat were up, but Minneapolis wheat finished unchanged.
A private analytical firm projected Brazil’s wheat crop for 2019/2020 to be 6.6 million tonnes, one million tonnes more than the country’s 2018/19 crop. The firm projected Brazil’s wheat exports to fall to 5.7 million tonnes in 2019/2020 from 7 million tonnes in 2018/2019.
Russia’s agriculture ministry announced on Thursday plans to tighten quality control of the country’s wheat exports.
Ukraine reported its wheat exports for 2018/19 have reached 475.8 million bushels.
Taiwan issued a tender for one million tonnes of milling wheat, which is open until March 22.
Jordan issues a tender for 4.4 million tonnes of milling wheat, which is open until March 26.
