By Phil Franz-Warkentin, Commodity News Service Canada
Jan. 3, 2014
Winnipeg – ICE Futures Canada canola contracts settled with small gains on Friday, seeing some consolidation to end the week after dropping sharply on Thursday.
In addition to the speculative short-covering, domestic processors were also on the buy side as crush margins remain historically strong, according to participants. Early advances in CBOT soybeans also provided some spillover support for the Canadian futures.
However, CBOT soyoil was lower and soybeans were well off their earlier highs by the close. A firmer tone in the Canadian dollar was also bearish for canola.
The general downtrend remains in place for canola from both a chart perspective and fundamentally, according to traders. As a result, any gains were being seen as good selling opportunities.
About 11,522 canola contracts were traded on Friday, which compares with Thursday when 16,769 contracts changed hands. Spreading accounted for 6,966 of the contracts traded.
Milling wheat, durum and barley futures were untraded.
Settlement prices are in Canadian dollars per metric ton.
