North American Grain/Oilseed Review: Canola corrects lower

The ICE Futures canola market was weaker on Tuesday, retreating from fresh contract highs as some speculative profit-taking weighed on values.

Losses in crude oil accounted for some spillover selling pressure in world vegetable oil markets, including canola. However, Chicago Board of Trade soyoil futures recovered from their own early losses to settle narrowly mixed.

The general technical trend remains pointed higher for canola, with any losses likely encouraging some scale-down demand. Tight old crop supplies and uncertainty over new crop production also provided some support.

Statistics Canada releases its first acreage estimates for the upcoming growing season on April 26, with pre-report positioning behind some of the activity.

About 13,776 canola contracts traded on Tuesday, which compares with Monday when 11,412 contracts changed hands. Spreading accounted for 6,446 of the contracts traded.

SOYBEAN futures at the Chicago Board of Trade moved to both sides of unchanged on Tuesday, with the bias lower in the most active months at the close.

Adjustments to the spread between corn and soybeans provided some underlying support for soybeans, as recent strength in corn has shifted the ratio more in favour of seeding corn.

The United States Department of Agriculture announced private export sales of 123,000 tonnes of soybeans to unknown destinations this morning.

U.S. soybean seeding is just getting underway, with one per cent of intended acres in the ground as of this past Sunday, according to the weekly USDA crop update. That’s only slightly off the two per cent average for this time of year.

Meanwhile, a report out of Argentina placed the soybean harvest there at 14 per cent done.

CORN hit fresh contract highs once again in overnight activity, but ran into some resistance to turn lower.

U.S. corn seeding was four per cent complete in the latest weekly report, which was off the seven per cent average for this time of year as cool and wet conditions continue to cause delays in some areas.

Losses in wheat accounted for some spillover selling in the corn market.

WHEAT was pressured lower by ‘turnaround Tuesday’ selling as the market took back some of its recent gains.

The losses came despite declining crop prospects, with the U.S. winter wheat crop down two points in the good-to-excellent category – at 30 per cent.

Spring wheat was eight per cent seeded, slightly behind the nine per cent average for this time of year.

Tags: soybean futures, corn futures, Vegetable Oil, soyoil, futures, wheat futures, Market, canola