ICE Canola Falls On Farmer Selling

Canola saw a light to moderate trade with intermonth spreading augmenting the volume.

The total canola volume was estimated at 12,587 contracts, down from Friday’s 12,627 contracts, including an estimated 3,294 contracts involved in the spread trade.

Canola was lower in the overnight market reflecting the weakness in international vegetable oil prices. Canola continued to see declines as the North American trading session got underway with the market ignoring opening gains in the Chicago Board of Trade soy complex futures.
When US soy complex futures turned lower, canola losses intensified and canola finished with losses.

Canola was pressured down by increased farmer selling that has been noted since the beginning of the new year, said cash dealers. Bearish technical signals and the weakness in CBOT soy complex futures also weighed on prices.

While the Canadian dollar is slightly lower today, it continues to flirt with the US$0.97 level and that weighed on values. A slower pace to demand was also an undermining feature of the market.

Canola was pushed to its lows at the close by the late price slide in CBOT soybean futures, traders said.

The uncertainly ahead of Tuesday’s US Dept of Agriculture reports accounted for subdued trading activity in canola and the absence of aggressive pricing on either side of the market, analysts said.

Exporter scale down buying was augmented by some light crusher pricing with commercials the main sellers as elevator company selling continued at a heavier pace.

Western barley was untraded and unchanged amid a lack of interest for most of the day. However in the last two minutes, spread activity enhanced the volume with the Mar contract undermined by weakness in the barley cash market, brokers
said. Prices ended mixed.

The total barley volume was estimated at 201 contracts, up from 135 contracts on Friday, including an estimated 152 contracts involved in the spread trade.

Prices are in Canadian dollars per metric ton: