North American grain/oilseed review: Canola backs away from early gains to end lower

By Phil Franz-Warkentin

Glacier FarmMedia MarketsFarm – The ICE Futures canola market failed to hold onto earlier gains on Thursday, settling with small losses.

Canola had started the session seeing a continuation of Wednesday’s corrective bounce, with advances in European rapeseed and the Chicago soy complex also supportive.

Production uncertainty in parts of Western Canada also underpinned the market, although rising yield prospects for the United States soybean crop kept a lid on the upside and an eventual downturn in soyoil spilled into canola as the day progressed.

Most technical indicators also remain pointed lower, making the early gains a selling opportunity from a chart standpoint

There were an estimated 27,135 contracts traded on Thursday, which compares with Wednesday when 35,615 contracts traded. Spreading accounted for 11,020 of the contracts traded.

SOYBEAN futures at the Chicago Board of Trade held within a penny of unchanged on Thursday, retreating from earlier advances.

Weekly United States soybean export sales topped trade expectations, with about 1.3 million tonnes of new crop business going on the books. An additional 221,000 tonnes of old crop sales were also reported.

However, there was no real change to the underlying bearish fundamentals as U.S. crop weather remains favourable and supply projections keep rising.

U.S. oilseed processors crushed 182.881 million bushels of soybeans in July, according to a report from the National Oilseed Processors Association (NOPA). That was up by 4.1 per cent from the previous month and set a new record for July.

CORN was also underpinned by oversold price sentiment and chart-based positioning, but the market ran into resistance as the good U.S. crop weather weighed on values.

Old crop weekly U.S. corn sales came in below trade expectations, at about 120,000 tonnes, but new crop sales of 800,500 were solid – topping trade expectations.

WHEAT was mostly lower, backing away from overnight gains after a Russian attack on an Odesa grain facility sparked some buying in the wheat market.

The USDA reported weekly U.S. soybean export sales of just under 400,000 tonnes, which was at the higher end of trade expectations.

The International Grain Council cut its call on 2024/25 world wheat production to 799 million tonnes. That was down by two million from an earlier estimate, but still up from the 794 million tonnes grown in 2023/24.