ICE canola slide continues Friday

By Phil Franz-Warkentin

Glacier FarmMedia | MarketsFarm — The ICE Futures canola market continued its downward slide at midday Friday, hitting fresh two-month lows as losses in outside markets weighed on values.

Chicago soyoil, European rapeseed and Malaysian palm oil futures were all lower, leaving canola hard-pressed to find any independent strength.

Bearish technical signals contributed to the declines, as speculators were thought to be back adding to their large net short positions.

However, the underlying fundamentals remain supportive for canola and scale-down end user demand helped temper the declines. Weekly Canadian canola exports of 189,500 tonnes were down 28 per cent from the previous week, although crop year-to-date movement at 3.6 million tonnes was roughly double last year’s level.

An estimated 35,500 canola contracts traded as of 10:48 CST.

Prices in Canadian dollars per metric tonne at 10:48 CST:

Canola            Jan   590.20    dn  4.80

Mar   603.60    dn  4.60

May   612.50    dn  5.40

Jul   617.20    dn  5.20