By Dwayne Klassen, Commodity News Service Canada

Winnipeg – August 27/12 – Canola futures on the ICE Canada trading platform finished mixed on Monday with the nearby contracts down and the far deferred values up. The taking of profits by a variety of market participants along with the downturn in CBOT soybean futures accounted for much of the selling interest, industry watchers said.

The sell-off seen in CBOT soyoil futures also contributed to the selling that surfaced in canola, brokers said.

The continued upswing in the value of the Canadian dollar was an undermining price influence in canola throughout the session. The bearish sentiment was also fueled by elevator company hedge selling, in anticipation of farmer movement of canola into the cash pipeline picking up in the near future, traders said.

The stalling out of harvest operations in Saskatchewan during the weekend due to heavy rainfall provided some early support for canola. However, the weather outlooks calling for drier weather on the Canadian prairies over the next few days, was expected to allow the harvest to again pick up some steam, brokers said.

Scale down demand from domestic processors and exporters, also helped to slow the price decline seen in canola, traders said. Last week’s smaller than anticipated canola production estimate from Statistics Canada also provided some underlying support.

The early advances in canola were fueled in part by the overnight advances seen in Malaysian palm oil and European rapeseed futures.

There were an estimated 9,474 canola contracts traded Monday, down from the 16,376 contracts that changed hands during the previous session.

There were 22 milling wheat contracts traded with commercials seen repositioning spreads, brokers said. Durum and barley contracts were unchanged and untraded.

Prices are in Canadian dollars per metric ton.