By Dwayne Klassen, Commodity News Service Canada

Winnipeg – September 11/12 – Canola futures on the ICE Canada trading platform finished Tuesday’s session on the defensive with liquidation of risk ahead of the USDA supply/demand balance sheets scheduled for release Wednesday morning behind some of the declines, market watchers said.

The losses experienced in CBOT soybean and soyoil futures contributed to the downward price action in canola as did the overnight sell-off in Malaysian palm oil.

The continued upward surge in the value of the Canadian dollar Tuesday also added to the bearish sentiment in canola, traders said.

The advancing harvest operations across western Canada and the resulting increase in farmer deliveries of canola into the cash pipeline, also was an undermining price influence.

Some of the downward price slide was also attributed to chart-based speculative selling, traders said.

The losses in canola were restricted by scale down domestic crusher buying as well as by commercial pricing of old export business, brokers said.

Continued concerns about the poor yield potential for canola on the Canadian prairies also slowed the price declines. The buying back of previously sold positions was also evident and helped to temper the price declines in canola.

There were an estimated 8,375 canola contracts traded Tuesday, up slightly from the 8,294 contracts that changed hands during the previous session.

There were 8 milling wheat contracts traded with commercials the main participants, brokers said.

Durum and barley contracts were untraded and unchanged.

Prices are in Canadian dollars per metric ton.