ICE Canola Down On US Soy, Slow Demand

Canola saw a moderate trade with commercials rolling their Jan contracts into the March contract ahead of the end of the month accounting for much of the volume. Spreading accounted for the bulk of the volume.

The total canola volume was estimated at 10,967 contracts, down from Friday’s 13,092 contracts, including an estimated 6,106 contracts involved in the spread trade.

Canola was narrowly mixed in the overnight market with some selling pressure tied to the weakness in palm oil values. Canola posted losses as the North American trading session got underway, ignoring opening gains in Chicago Board of Trade soy complex futures. However, the US soy complex then turned lower and that added to the downward pressure on canola with canola ending with small losses.

Canola was pressured down by the strong Canadian dollar and sluggish demand as the latest statistics from the Canadian Grain Commission note that canola supplies in commercial hands at the west coast of Canada are building, traders said. The scale down nature of end user buying and light country movement in the thin holiday trade contributed to the weakness.

Limiting the price slide was the overall slow pace to selling and the unwillingness to push the market too far one way or the other in the small holiday trade, said brokers.

Positioning was noted ahead of year end with crusher and exporter scale down buying meeting mainly commercial selling.
Speculative activity was largely sidelined.

Western barley ended mixed in a very thin commercial trade. The activity was mainly intermonth spreading which accounted for the mixed tone in the very small volumes.

The total barley volume was estimated at 58 contracts, down from Friday’s 94 contracts, including an estimated 38 contracts involved in the spread trade.

Prices are in Canadian dollars per metric ton: