By Dave Sims and Terryn Shiells, Commodity News Service Canada
Winnipeg, Oct 9 – THE ICE Futures Canada canola market ended slightly weaker on choppy trading Thursday – as investors evened positions before the release of Friday’s USDA monthly crop production and supply/demand report. Values were mostly lower throughout the morning before a late rally briefly pushed them into positive territory. Ultimately however, they drifted back below unchanged.
Farmer selling was a feature of Thursday’s session with some farmer hedge pressure coming to bear, according to an analyst.
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The advancing Western Canadian harvest also weighed on values along with European rapeseed futures which were also weaker.
The Canadian dollar was lower, which provided some support to values.
Soybeans were higher which was also supportive.
About 34,000 canola contracts were traded on Thursday. Spreading was a feature, accounting for 22,914 of the contracts traded.
Milling wheat, durum, and barley were all untraded.
Settlement prices are in Canadian dollars per metric ton.
SOYBEAN futures at the Chicago Board of Trade ended four to seven cents US per bushel higher on Thursday, as traders squared positions ahead of Friday’s monthly USDA report.
Concerns about rain forecasted for the US slowing harvest and causing possible flooding this week helped to lift the market, analysts said.
Further support came from strong weekly export sales. The USDA said 922,600 tonnes of soybeans were sold for export during the week ended October 1, which was above expectations.
However, ongoing expectations of record large US production, a recent pickup in farmer selling and news of good planting progress in South America were bearish.
SOYOIL futures finished little changed on Thursday, with downward pressure coming from disappointing weekly export sales data.
On the other side, spillover support came from the advances seen in soybean futures, traders said.
SOYMEAL futures were firmer Thursday, taking some direction from the gains in soybeans.
CORN futures in Chicago settled unchanged to two cents US per bushel higher on Thursday, finding support from worries about wet weather delaying harvest in parts of the US Midwest this week, traders said.
Short covering ahead of Friday’s USDA report and better than expected weekly export sales added to the bullish tone. The USDA said 784,800 tonnes of corn were sold for export.
However, expectations of record large US production and very large US and world ending stocks in Friday’s USDA report tempered the gains.
WHEAT futures were weaker in the US, with Kansas City, Chicago and Minneapolis futures finishing 11 to 15 cents US per bushel lower.
The markets were reacting to disappointing weekly export sales data, brokers said.
According to the USDA, 372,400 tonnes of wheat were sold for export during the week ended October 1, which compares with the top end of expectations around 700,000 tonnes.
Ideas that the USDA will show very large global wheat stocks in Friday’s report added to the bearish tone, as did forecasts calling for rain that will benefit recently seeded US winter wheat crops.
However, worries about dry conditions in Brazil and Australia underpinned values, as did slowing exports out of
Russia.
• China purchased 25.35 million tonnes of wheat from their state reserves, an increase of 200 per cent from last year, according to reports.
• Farmers in Ukraine are paying more to seed their winter wheat crops this year. The Ministry of Agricultural Policy in the country said total costs were 40.5 billion hryvnia, up 6.6 billion hryvnia from last year.
• World cereal grain production for 2014/15 is pegged at 2.52 billion tonnes, according to the World Food and Agricultural Organization.
