North American grain/oilseed review: Canola recovers from early losses to end mixed

By Phil Franz-Warkentin

Glacier FarmMedia | MarketsFarm — The ICE Futures canola market was mixed at Monday’s close, moving higher in the front month contracts late in the day after posting losses for most of the session. Canada officially initiated a dispute over Chinese tariffs at the World Trade Organization on Monday.

Chicago soyoil and European rapeseed also turned higher after earlier losses, contributing to the eventual gains in canola.

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada released updated supply/demand estimates after Friday’s close, raising their call for 2025/26 canola ending stocks to 2.0 million tonnes. That compares with an earlier estimate of only 1.0 million tonnes and the 2024/25 projection of 1.3 million tonnes.

Speculative fund traders moved from a net long position in canola to a net short during the week ended March 18, according to the latest Commitments of Traders report from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

There were 28,107 contracts traded on Monday, which compares with Friday when 50,335 contracts changed hands. Spreading accounted for 10,956 of the contracts traded.

SOYBEAN futures at the Chicago Board of Trade settled with small losses on Monday, after holding within a few cents of unchanged throughout the session. Ideas were circulating that the United States may not go ahead with previously announced broad tariffs on April 2 and rather impose more targeted measures.

Large, recently harvested, Brazilian supplies continue to overhang the market with less than a quarter of the country’s soybean crop still standing, according to reports. However, some analysts lowered their overall production estimates, due to adverse weather earlier in the season.

Weekly U.S. soybean export inspections were up by about 25 per cent on the week, at 822,000 tonnes.

The USDA’s planting intentions report will be released on March 31, with pre-report positioning expected over the next week. Early expectations are for a cut to U.S. soybean acres from last year and an increase in corn.

Quarterly stocks data will also be released at that time.

CORN futures held onto small gains, despite the expectations for increased U.S. corn acres this spring.

Weekly U.S. corn export inspections of about 1.5 million tonnes were solid, with Mexico the top destination.

Seeding of Brazil’s second corn crop was reportedly nearing completion.

WHEAT was lower across the board, with talks of a possible ceasefire in the works between Russia and Ukraine behind some of the selling.

Weekly U.S. wheat export inspections of just under half a million tonnes were down slightly on the week.