ICE Canola Up On Soyoil Gains, Technical Rebound

Canola saw a moderate trade with intermonth spreading augmenting the volumes. Traders expressed some surprise at the fairly good volumes in the abbreviated session. "I expected us to trade less than 5,000 contracts," said a trader.
Trade was choppy ahead of the Christmas break with the ICE Canada market closed until Tuesday.

The total canola volume was estimated at 8,943 contracts, down from Wednesday’s 12,918 contracts, including an estimated 3,288 contracts involved in the spread trade.

Canola was lower in a choppy trade in the overnight market with bearish technical signals undermining the market and the lack of selling giving some support, said traders. Canola firmed up as the North American trading session got underway and the CBOT soybean market rallied. Canola saw a choppy session ending mainly higher.

Canola drew its support from solid gains in CBOT soyoil futures and ideas that, after 5 days of losses,
canola was oversold and due for a rebound. Also contributing some support was a slower pace to selling and the weaker Canadian dollar, analysts said.

Maintaining selling pressure over the canola market was the large canola supply in western Canada and the sluggish demand.
Traders noted many commercial participants were sidelined ahead of the holiday with activity expected to be subdued through next week due to the traditional holiday period.
"The offices are being run by junior staff and they just don’t have the authority to trade," said a commercial.

Routine exporter buying was augmented by some light crusher interest.
The selling was largely commercial with cash dealers
noting that farmers were
pricing delivery contracts ahead of month end.

Western barley ended untraded and unchanged amid lack of interest.

Prices are in Canadian dollars per metric ton: