The ICE Futures canola market held within a narrow trading range during the first week of October, testing downside support on several occasions as seasonal harvest pressure wound down, but the market lacked any spark to move higher.
November canola found major support around $710 per tonne. Any attempts to break lower quickly ran out of steam.
Meanwhile, the contract appeared hard-pressed to move much higher, with resistance around $725 per tonne. Speculators have moved from a net long to a net short position in canola, which means they’re betting on further downside in canola. However, wide crush margins and a slowdown in farmer selling should be supportive on the other side.
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Canola market sees up and down week
Canola futures endured a topsy-turvy week ended July 17, 2025, with most ICE contracts seeing net gains of about C$15 per tonne.
Canola exports through the first two months of the 2023-24 marketing year are running well ahead of the year-ago level, but production was down on the year and expectations are for offshore demand to slow down, given the tighter supplies.
Crush margins may be strong domestically, but canola is thought to still be overpriced on the global market. A recent outlook from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada calls for domestic usage of 10 million tonnes of canola in 2023-24 – which would be up slightly on the year – and for exports of only 7.7 million tonnes. Ending stocks are forecast to tighten to one million tonnes, from 1.5 million at the close of the 2022-23 marketing year.
Seasonally speaking, the lows could be in for canola, although where the market goes from here will likely depend highly on outside forces. While the Canadian canola harvest is near completion, the bulk of the U.S. soybean crop was still in the field to start October.
Soybean and corn harvests in the U.S. were both about a quarter done at the beginning of October and are expected to pick up steam.
Meanwhile, farmers in South America were busy planting their next crops, with ongoing dryness in Argentina and flooding in parts of Brazil.
Both soybeans and corn could dip lower during the harvest season but appear to have found support for now.
The move below US$13 per bushel in November soybeans in late September was bearish from a chart standpoint, but the contract found support in the 12.60-$12.70 per bushel area. Fund traders were still holding a net long in soybeans, but that was shrinking.
For corn, speculators remained heavily short but may be starting to cover some of those positions, with the grain trending higher to start October.
After hitting a low of $4.6775 per bushel on Sept. 19, the December corn contract has generally trended higher and was nearing the psychological $5 per bushel mark on Oct. 6. A close above that level would be supportive, possibly setting the stage for another leg up.
