North American Grain and Oilseed Review: Canola takes a tumble
More declines for U.S. soy, corn, wheat
By Glen Hallick, MarketsFarm
Glacier Farm Media MarketsFarm – Intercontinental Exchange canola futures gave up early increases to fall hard on Thursday, largely due to weakness in the Chicago soy complex.
Additional pressure on canola came from declines in Malaysian palm oil and European rapeseed. However, modest upticks in crude oil attempted to stymie a further downturn in the vegetable oils.
There’s uncertainty in the biofuel market over what course of action the incoming Trump administration will take in January. There are concerns Canada’s canola oil exports to the United States could get hit hard.
With a series of losses for canola, the January contract slipped below its five-, 20- and 200-day moving averages.
At mid-afternoon Thursday the Canadian dollar fell to 71.25 U.S. cents compared to Wednesday’s close of 71.53.
There were 67,003 contracts traded on Thursday, compared to 38,228 on Wednesday. Spreading accounted for 45,264 contracts traded.
Prices are in Canadian dollars per metric tonne:
Price Change Canola Jan 627.60 dn 21.50 Mar 640.80 dn 20.70 May 650.40 dn 18.30 Jul 655.10 dn 14.80
SOYBEAN futures at the Chicago Board of Trade were weaker on Thursday due to increases in the United States dollar making exports more expensive.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported a private sale for 176,000 tonnes of current crop soybeans to unknown destinations.
The USDA postponed its weekly export sales report to Friday due to Veterans’ Day on Monday.
The U.S. National Oilseed Processors Association is scheduled to release its October crush report on Friday. The average trade guess is 196.84 million bushels of soybeans, which would be an all-time record monthly crush. The trade projected soyoil stocks at 1.09 billion pounds.
Conab bumped its call on Brazil soybean production for 2024/25 to 166.14 million tonnes from 166 million last month.
The Rosario Grain Exchange projected Argentina soybean output for 2024/25 ranging from 53 million to 53.5 million tonnes, up from 52 million to 53 million.
CORN futures were lower on Thursday, in sympathy with soy.
More rain has been forecast for the U.S. Central Plains over the next five days. The Southern Plains and eastern Midwest are expected to get one to two inches of rain over the coming seven days.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said there’s a 57 per cent chance of a La Nina developing between now and December, with it expected to last from January to March.
Conab nudged up its call on the 2024/25 Brazil corn crop to 119.81 million tonnes from 119.74 million.
The RGE cut one million tonnes from is estimate on Argentina corn production, now at 50 million to 51 million tonnes.
WHEAT futures were lower on Thursday, also due to the higher U.S. dollar.
SovEcon placed the 2023/24 Russian wheat harvest at 51.40 million tonnes, down 100,000 from its previous estimate. Also, the consultancy projected the 2024/25 wheat harvest to be 81.6 million tonnes, up 1.5 million from its earlier projection.
Strategie Grains estimated a five per cent increase in the planted area for European Union soft wheat at 21.4 million hectares. That’s expected to reap more than 114 million tonnes.
With the Australian wheat harvest up to 20 per cent complete, Rabobank raised its production call by 1.5 million tonnes at 29 million.
The RGE reduced its call on the 2024/25 wheat crop in Argentina to 18.80 million tonnes from 19.50 million.
