North American Grain/Oilseed Review: Canola hits new two-year highs

By Phil Franz-Warkentin, MarketsFarm

WINNIPEG, Sept. 14 (MarketsFarm) – The ICE Futures canola market was up sharply on Monday, hitting fresh two-year highs for the front month contract as bullish technical signals kept speculators showing solid demand.

Gains in Chicago Board of Trade soybeans and soyoil provided spillover support for canola, with the soy market also testing two year highs.

Statistics Canada released updated production estimates Monday morning pegging the 2020/21 canola crop at 19.393 million tonnes. That was down only slightly from the August estimate of 19.403 million tonnes and compares with the year-ago level of 19.447 million.

North American Grain and Oilseed Review: Canola falls hard

By Glen Hallick, MarketsFarm Glacier Farm Media MarketsFarm – Intercontinental Exchange canola futures turned weaker on Wednesday, despite support from…

Concerns over recent frost damage across parts of Western Canada also provided some support, although forecasts calling for relatively favourable harvest conditions over the next week limited any weather-related strength.

About 28,514 canola contracts traded on Monday, which compares with Thursday when 31,493 contracts changed hands. Spreading accounted for 19,564 of the contracts traded.

SOYBEAN futures at the Chicago Board of Trade touched their highest levels in two years on Monday, with the most active November contract settling right above US$10 per bushel.

The United States Department of Agriculture announced private export sales of 129,000 tonnes of soybeans to China this morning plus an additional 318,000 tonnes to other unknown destinations.

Solid crush margins in China were said to be behind some of the increased Chinese demand for U.S. beans lately.

Concerns over cold overnight temperatures in some northern bean growing regions were also supportive.

CORN futures also found some support from good export demand, but held closer to unchanged on the day.

Spillover buying interest after the USDA lowered its corn production estimate on Friday provided some support.

However, chart resistance held to the upside and kept corn in a tight range.

WHEAT futures were mixed, with gains in the winter wheats and a softer tone in Minneapolis spring wheat.

Statistics Canada lowered its estimate for the country’s wheat crop to 34.1 million tonnes. That was down from the August forecast of 35.3 million tonnes, but would still be the second-largest Canadian wheat production on record and up 5.6 per cent from the previous year.

Australian wheat production was estimated at 28.9 million tonnes by ABARES, which would be up by 2.2 million from an earlier forecast.