By Phil Franz-Warkentin, Commodity News Service Canada
Winnipeg, Oct. 26 (CNS Canada) – ICE Futures canola contracts settled with small gains on Friday, seeing some modest strength ahead of the weekend.
Advances in Chicago Board of Trade soybeans and early weakness in the Canadian dollar provided early support for canola. However, soyoil was weaker while the Canadian currency recovered to trade near unchanged by the close.
While the longer-term technical trend remains pointed lower, chart support held to the downside and kept some speculative buying in the market on Friday.
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Uncertainty over the size of the Canadian crop was also supportive. While good weather over the past week has allowed the harvest to advance in Alberta and Saskatchewan, the yields and quality of the later-harvested fields were likely downgraded.
About 26,441 canola contracts traded, which compares with Thursday when 29,584 contracts changed hands. Spreading accounted for 14,512 of the contracts traded.
SOYBEAN futures at the Chicago Board of Trade finished with small gains on Friday.
While the ongoing trade dispute between the United States and China remains a bearish influence, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported private export sales of 260,000 tonnes of soybeans to unknown destinations Friday morning.
Week and month-end positioning was also supportive, as soybeans were due for a correction following recent declines.
However, the advancing Midwestern harvest put some pressure on values.
Brazil is holding a presidential election over the weekend, and any resulting activity in the South American country’s currency could influence the soybean markets next week.
CORN futures were higher, taking back most of Thursday’s losses.
Good end user demand and a rally in wheat kept corn propped up, with speculative positioning ahead of the weekend also a feature.
However, seasonal harvest pressure did help limit the advances.
WHEAT futures were all higher, as recent price weakness was finally making U.S. wheat more attractively priced for end-users.
Declining production estimates out of a number of wheat growing regions of the world were supportive, with reports out of Australia and Argentina both showing downgrades to the crop prospects.
Ideas that Russia may soon have to slow exports due to tightening supplies were also supportive.
