By Dave Sims, Commodity News Service Canada
Winnipeg, October 20 – THE ICE Futures Canada canola market suffered losses on Thursday in sympathy with the US soy market.
Favourable harvesting conditions are expected across much of the Prairies this weekend, which was bearish.
“Harvest will kick in again on the Prairies this weekend. It will be a long battle but if canola starts rolling in a lot of people are drooling to sell it,” said a trader in Winnipeg.
Traders continue to dump November contracts in favour of January.
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There are ideas the market may have been overbought.
However, the Canadian dollar was weaker relative to its US counterpart, which made canola more attractive on the international market.
Canola received some technical support from the C$500 per tonne level.
Around 53,581 canola contracts were traded on Thursday, which compares with Wednesday when around 38,787 contracts changed hands. Spreading accounted for about 41,752 of the contracts traded.
Milling wheat, barley and durum were untraded.
Settlement prices are in Canadian dollars per metric tonne.
US Grains/Oilseed Review
The market weakened six to seven cents a bushel due to strong exports and good harvest weather in the US Midwest.
Weekly export sales in the US were above a million tonnes, which exceeded what most analysts had been expecting.
The most-active December contract found technical support at the US$3.50 mark.
SOYBEAN futures finished five to six cents per bushel lower on Thursday as weekly US exports were higher than expected. Net soybean sales for the week ended October 13 came in above two million tonnes. Most analysts expected just 750,000 to 1.4 million tonnes to be exported.
China is attempting to sell 100,000 tonnes of rapeseed oil from their state reserves, which also weighed on values.
Many traders dumped their November contracts and took positions in January.
SOYOIL fell lower with soybeans.
SOYMEAL futures fell as some livestock producers turned to plentiful forage stocks and fodder wheat.
Wheat futures on the Chicago Board of Trade ended two to three cents per bushel lower on chart-based trading.
Export sales for the 2016/17 season were pegged at 513,800 tonnes by the USDA, which surpassed trade estimates of 350,000-500,000 tonnes, according to a report.
Cold, wet weather is delaying the harvest in Canada, which was supportive.
