ICE Canada Grain/Oilseed Review: Canola Up On Steady Demand

Fresh speculative buying surfaced early in canola and helped to stimulate some of the price advances. Bouts of commodity fund buying was also evident which further underpinned canola prices, brokers said.

Gains overnight in Malaysian palm oil, the e-CBOT soybean complex and Matif rapeseed futures helped to generate some early strength in canola, brokers said.

Advances posted by CBOT soybean and soyoil values during the North American day session contributed to the gains seen by canola.

Much of the commercial interest in canola was believed to be covering domestic crusher needs as well as some routine export business, traders said.

The grain stocks in all positions report from Statistics Canada, showing supplies of canola on farm and in commercial positions at slightly tighter than expected levels, also helped to stimulate some buying, brokers said.

The upward price action in canola, particularly the deferred contracts, were limited by the strength in the Canadian dollar and sentiment that producers in western Canada were making some fair progress in seeding the canola crop.

Spreading was a feature of the activity and helped to bolster the volume total.

There were an estimated 17,074 canola contracts traded during Friday’s session, down fractionally from 17,183 during the previous session.

Western barley futures were mixed with the nearby months up and deferred contracts down. Some of the weakness in the commodity was tied to light commercial liquidation orders, traders said. Some of that selling was tied to the grain stocks report, which showed feed barley usage in the domestic market was a lot less than expected and that supplies of the commodity are a lot higher than anticipated.

An estimated 53 barley contracts changed hands during the session. On Thursday, 92 barley contracts were traded.