ICE Canola Contracts Up As Funds Re-energize

Some of the buying from the fund sector was encouraged by some easing of concern over Ireland and Europe’s debt issues, brokers said.

Additional strength in canola was fuelled by the advances seen overnight in Malaysian palm oil and European rapeseed futures. Sharp advances in CBOT soybean and soyoil values also propped up canola, traders said.

Continued talk of fresh export demand for Canadian canola spurred some strength in the commodity as did the resurfacing of domestic processor demand, traders said. The processor interest was said to have returned amid an improvement in crush margins.

Support in canola also came from a drop off in panic selling by producers, who began to deliver canola into the cash pipeline amid the sharp drop in futures prices, brokers said.

The pricing of old export business by commercials was also an underpinning price influence for canola.

The upside in canola was being limited by the upturn in the value of the Canadian dollar and by profit-taking at the highs, traders said.

Activity in canola was described as being on the lighter side, with it only taking a small amount of buying or selling to push prices around, traders said.

There were an estimated 4,775 canola contracts traded at 10:20 CST. Of the contracts traded 1,195 were spread related.

There were no western barley futures traded as of 10:20 CST.