Wittal: Trading thin for U.S. Memorial Day

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Published: May 25, 2009

Our online grain markets columnist Brian Wittal welcomes feedback and information on market conditions in your area, such as current offering prices, basis levels, trucking premiums and special crops contracts. Contact Brian today.

May 25 — U.S. markets are closed today for the Memorial Day celebration, so Canadian traders pretty much stayed at home, as was evident by the very limited thin trading that was done on the Canadian grains today.

Canola finished unchanged in the nearby months and down $1 to $3 per tonne in the forward months. Barley finished unchanged at $154.80 per tonne.

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No Canadian traders are willing to make any significant trades in this U.S. long weekend weather market that could turn on a dime.

Weather conditions in Western Canada are forecast to improve this week, which will help seeding progress quite quickly. However, in the U.S., there are calls for continued rains and further seeding delays that could certainly play on the markets.

As seeding wraps up, and if the Canadian dollar continues to climb or hold these levels, we will see negative pressure start to build against canola futures because of existing inventories still on-farm and yet to be sold.

If rains continue to delay seeding in the U.S., we could see support for beans that could help canola up, but if corn acres are shifted to bean acres, then we are going to see beans and canola futures come under some solid pressure to pull back.

That’s all for today. — Brian

— Brian Wittal has spent over 27 years in the grain industry, including as an elevator manager and producer services representative for Alberta Wheat Pool, a regional sales manager for AgPro Grain and farm business representative for the Canadian Wheat Board, where he helped design some of the new pricing programs. He also operates his own company providing marketing and risk management advice for Prairie grain producers. Brian’s daily commentaries focus on how domestic and world market conditions affect you directly as grain producers.

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