By Terryn Shiells and Jade Markus, Commodity News Service Canada
Winnipeg, August 20 – Canola contracts on the ICE Futures Canada trading platform ended stronger on Thursday, with the November contract briefly moving above the key C$480 per tonne level during the session.
The gains were linked to positioning ahead of Friday morning’s Statistics Canada production report, due out at 7:30 a.m. CDT. Pre-report guesses call for a crop between 12.5 million tonnes and 14.5 million tonnes, which would be down from the 15.6 million tonnes grown in 2014/15.
Talk that some fresh exporter buying interest may be coming into the market added to the bullish tone, as did spillover from the gains in Chicago soybeans.
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However, a softer tone in outside vegetable oil markets, including European rapeseed and Malaysian palm oil, limited the advances.
The upswing in the value of the Canadian dollar was also bearish, as it made canola less attractive to crushers and foreign buyers.
About 18,413 contracts traded on Thursday, which compares with Wednesday when 22,324 contracts changed hands.
Milling wheat, barley and durum futures were untraded and unchanged.
SOYBEAN futures at the Chicago Board of Trade closed ten to 18 cents per bushel higher Thursday on investor short-covering after hitting a psychological level on Wednesday.
Investors were more active in the market on Thursday, which buoyed prices.
Despite closing higher, soybeans are seeing a significant amount of bearish factors, including a lack of demand for the commodity.
SOYOIL prices settled higher on Thursday following soybean futures.
SOYMEAL closed higher Thursday, following neighbouring markets.
CORN futures closed three to four cents per bushel higher Thursday ahead of the results of a US crop tour.
The 2015 Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour is expected to release its results in full on Friday, but survey results from the tour have supported corn prices, as they indicate a lower yield than USDA projections.
WHEAT futures in Chicago closed ten to 11 cents per bushel higher Thursday as concerns about the quality of US crops hit the market.
Analysts say a wet-weather disease, vomitoxin, is in high levels in US soft red winter wheat.
Additionally, a lot of US wheat is lower quality, as heavy rains earlier in the growing season washed starch out of plants, which is bearish.
– The Buenos Aires Grain Exchange says only 3.7 million hectares of wheat were planted in Argentina this year, which analysts say is a 4.4 million hectare drop from last year.
– India has implemented an import duty of 10 percent on wheat until March 31 next year.
ICE Futures Canada settlement prices are in Canadian dollars per metric ton.
