ICE Canada Review: Canola Turns Down At Close

Canola held onto small gains throughout the day, as the weaker Canadian dollar, together with gains in CBOT soyoil futures, helped crush margins improve, according to traders who said exporters and domestic crushers were both noted buyers.

However, soyoil took back most of its advances to close lower, and the declines in CBOT soybeans eventually spilled over to take canola down as well, said traders.

Ongoing harvest uncertainty, with wet fields still causing delays and quality concerns in many areas of western Canada, provided some underlying support to canola. However, conditions have generally turned warmer and drier across the Canadian Prairies, which should allow farmers to make some good harvest progress over the next week. The advancing harvest added to the late day losses in canola.

Some fund liquidation of their large long positions weighed on canola as well, as the speculators square up their positions ahead of the month end.

About 19,924 contracts traded on Tuesday, which compares with Monday when an estimated 21,444 contracts changed hands. Spreading was a feature on Tuesday, accounting for 10,770 of the contracts traded.

Western barley futures were untraded and unchanged on Tuesday.

Settlement prices are in Canadian dollars per metric ton.