North American grain/oilseed review: Canola holds onto small gains

By Phil Franz-Warkentin

Glacier FarmMedia MarketsFarm — The ICE Futures canola market held onto small gains at Wednesday’s close but finished well off its session highs.

Speculative positioning and end-user bargain hunting provided some early support for canola. However, farmer selling came forward at the highs and values drifted back towards unchanged.

The November contract settled below C$600 per tonne for the second session in a row, which was bearish from a technical standpoint.

Losses in Chicago soybeans and soyoil weighed on values. However, canola remains attractively priced compared to most other global oilseeds.

There were an estimated 64,270 contracts traded on Wednesday, which compares with Tuesday when 86,728 contracts traded. Spreading accounted for 43,600 of the contracts traded.

SOYBEAN futures at the Chicago Board of Trade continued to be pressured lower by the advancing harvest in the United States and improving moisture conditions in Brazil.

The U.S. soybean harvest was 67 per cent complete as of this past Sunday, running well ahead of the average pace for this time of year of 51 per cent done.

Flash sales of 175,000 tonnes of U.S. soybeans to unknown destinations were reported by the USDA.

CORN was stronger, as solid exports more than countered the seasonal harvest pressure.

The USDA reported private export sales of 1.6 million tonnes of corn to Mexico Wednesday morning, with an additional 332,000 tonnes of corn to unknown destinations.

The U.S. corn harvest was nearing the halfway mark in the latest weekly report, at 47 per cent done. That’s eight points ahead of the average.

WHEAT was underpinned by chart-based positioning after recent declines.

Winter wheat seeding in the U.S. hit 64 per cent in the latest weekly report, two points off the average. Emergence at 35 per cent compared with the average of 38 per cent.

India raised its purchase price for domestic wheat by 6.6 per cent in an effort to increase production.

Forecasts calling for rain in some dry regions of Russia weighed on prices.