CNS Canada — ICE Futures Canada canola contracts posted losses in most months during the week ended Wednesday, though the market uncovered some support to the downside and finds itself well off its nearby lows.
The larger-than-expected old-crop stocks uncovered by Statistics Canada in its September 3 report remain a bearish influence overhanging the market.
There will still be a need to ration some demand going forward through the winter, though, as the 2015-16 crop is still expected to be smaller, said Ken Ball of PI Financial in Winnipeg.
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As the harvest in southern Alberta presses on, a broker said that is one of the factors pulling feed prices lower in the region. Darcy Haley, vice-president of Ag Value Brokers in Lethbridge, added that lower cattle numbers in feedlots, plentiful amounts of grass for cattle to graze and a lacklustre export market also weighed on feed prices.
“The recent lows might hold up in canola,” he said.
The November contract dropped as low as $454 per tonne on Friday, but managed to settle more than $10 off that level by Wednesday.
Harvest pressure may weigh on canola in the near term, but Ball noted the Canadian market will also take much of its direction from CBOT soybeans.
“There might be a little more downside in beans, but there might not,” he said.
— Phil Franz-Warkentin writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting. Follow CNS Canada at @CNSCanada on Twitter.
