By Dwayne Klassen, Commodity News Service Canada

Winnipeg – October 25/12 – Canola futures on the ICE Canada trading platform finished Thursday’s session on the defensive with the taking of profits by a variety of participants and the sell-off in CBOT soybeans behind the downward price slide, market watchers said.

The declines in canola were also associated with an increase in elevator company hedge selling, which was inspired by a pick up in farmer deliveries of canola into the cash pipeline. Attractive cash bids helped to stimulate the increased farmer selling, brokers said.

Some of the downward price action in canola was also linked to the completion of export business with China. Traders felt that a lot of the Canadian canola sales to that country over the past couple of days has now been priced.

Declines overnight in European rapeseed futures also sparked some early selling in canola. The favourable conditions and the strong likelihood of a record sized soybean crop in South America helped to put some downward pressure on canola values.

Underlying support in canola, however, came from steady demand under the market. Some of the demand was linked to domestic crusher needs, but there also remained steady buying interest from exporters on the price dips, traders said.

Chart-based speculative and commodity fund buying had also provided some support for canola throughout much of the day.

The rolling of positions from the November future to the January contract remained a feature of the activity in canola and helped to augment the volume total.

There were an estimated 17,574 canola contracts traded Thursday, down from the 19,375 contracts that changed hands during the previous session. Of the contracts traded, 13,292 were spread related.

There were 2 milling wheat contracts traded by commercials during the session.

Barley and durum contracts were untraded and unchanged.

Prices are in Canadian dollars per metric ton.