By Dave Sims and Phil Franz-Warkentin, Commodity News Service Canada
Winnipeg, April 28 – The ICE Futures Canada canola market finished narrowly mixed in volatile, but range-bound trading Tuesday.
The front-end contracts took strength from US soybeans and soymeal to post slight gains.
A lack of speculator and farmer selling was also supportive along with concerns that not enough canola will get planted in Western Canada this year.
However, strength in the Canadian dollar weighed down the more deferred contracts.
Weakness in Malaysian palm oil, US soyoil and huge world supplies of vegetable oil also put pressure on prices.
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Around 14,577 canola contracts were traded on Tuesday, which compares with Monday when 15,604 contracts changed hands.
Spreading in the May/July contracts was a feature, according to a trader.
There were 75 barley contracts traded as participants exited the front month ahead of its expiry.
Milling wheat and durum were both untraded.
Settlement prices are in Canadian dollars per metric ton.
SOYBEAN futures at the Chicago Board of Trade were stronger on Tuesday, with solid end user demand helping prop up the market.
The USDA reported an export sale of 390,000 tonnes of US soybeans to ‘unknown destinations’ for delivery during the 2015/16 marketing year.
In addition, local US bids were reported to be rising as domestic end users are being forced to pay up in order to bring in supplies from farmers who have turned their attention to spring seeding.
Fund traders were spreading soybeans against corn, which provided some further support for soybeans, according to participants.
SOYOIL settled lower on Tuesday, as adjustments in the soyoil/meal spread weighed on prices.
SOYMEAL futures were stronger on Tuesday.
CORN futures in Chicago settled within a penny of unchanged on Tuesday, with a slightly softer tone in the most actively traded months.
The good spring planting weather across the Midwest accounted for much of the selling pressure.
The country’s corn crop was 19% seeded as of this past Sunday, according to the USDA. While that was slightly behind the 25% average for this time of year, the near ideal weather forecasts should allow producers to make good headway over the next week.
Ongoing concerns over a bird flu outbreak in the US were also weighing on values, given expectations for declining demand from the poultry sector.
WHEAT futures in Chicago were up by one to four cents per bushel on Tuesday, as the market saw a corrective bounce after dropping to some of its lowest levels in five years.
Good crop weather in the US and other wheat growing regions of the world remained bearish for prices overall. However, the overall rating for the US winter wheat crop was left unchanged at 42% good-to-excellent in the latest weekly report, which was somewhat supportive as many participants had anticipated a slight improvement.
Favourable planting weather for spring wheat in the northern tier states was bearish, while a lack of significant export demand also weighed on prices.
– The US spring wheat crop was 55% seeded as of April 26, which compares with the average of 29% planted.
– Morocco is forecast to harvest a 11 million tonne grain crop this year, which would be up from the 6.7 million tonnes grown the previous year, according to the country’s agriculture minister. Of that total, soft wheat is forecast to come in at 5.2 million tonnes and durum at 2.2 million.
– The USDA reported weekly export inspections of 19.9 million bushels.
