ICE Canola Contracts Weaken On CBOT Declines

A pick up in elevator company hedge selling helped to undermine values, traders said. The steady farmer deliveries reflects ideas that US soybean values, and subsequently canola, will push lower and producers were trying to price some quantities before this drop occurs, they said.

The large global oilseed supply situation, with Argentina and Brazil in the process of harvesting a record sized soybean crop, helped to undermine canola futures, brokers said.

Ongoing speculation that canola area in western Canada will be up significantly this spring, also continued to generate some selling interest.

Canola values, however, were finding some good support from steady demand from a variety of outlets, brokers said.

"There has been some good speculative demand coming forward for canola, with participants said to be bailing out of currencies, crude oil and metals in favour of grains and oilseeds," a trader said.

Canadian canola also continues to be attractively priced on the world market in comparison to other oilseeds, which has helped to keep a firm price floor under the commodity, brokers said.

Strong domestic crusher demand was evident for canola early Friday with exporter interest also evident, traders said.

The pull back in the value of the Canadian dollar Friday after the currency moved towards parity with the US unit in early activity, also was an underpinning price influence, traders said.

There were an estimated 3,482 canola contracts traded at 10:44 CDT. Of the contracts traded, 1,078 consisted of spreads.

There were no western barley futures traded as of 10:44 CDT.