By Dave Sims and Jade Markus, Commodity News Service Canada
Winnipeg, June 2 (CNS Canada) – ICE Futures Canada canola contracts ended higher on Friday, propped up by gains in US soybeans and some speculative buying.
Weather concerns in parts of the Prairies also lifted canola prices. Farmers in northeastern Alberta have seen their seeding efforts delayed by wet weather with more rain in the forecast.
Old crop stocks of canola are still tight across Canada which helped support prices.
However, losses in vegetable oil markets undermined canola.
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The Canadian dollar was slightly stronger relative to its US counterpart, which made canola less attractive on the international market.
The July contract ran into technical pressure at the C$500 per tonne mark.
About 33,518 canola contracts traded on Friday, which compares with Thursday when 27,091 contracts changed hands. Spreading accounted for 4,124 of the contracts traded.
Milling wheat, durum, and barley were all untraded.
Settlement prices are in Canadian dollars per metric tonne.
SOYBEAN futures at the Chicago Board of Trade closed three to nine cents per bushel stronger on Friday, underpinned by strong export sales reported by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Export sales of soybeans released by the USDA totalled 610,200 metric tonnes for 2016/2017, and were up 29 per cent from the previous week and 66 per cent from the prior four-week average in the week ending May 25.
Those sales were higher than analysts had expected, which is bullish.
Position taking ahead of the weekend was also a feature, market watchers say.
SOYOIL prices closed lower on Friday, tracking losses in Malaysian palm oil.
SOYMEAL closed higher on Friday.
CORN futures closed one to two cents per bushel stronger on Friday, supported by concerns about the quality of the US crop.
Ideas that some acres of the grain may need to be reseeded or switched into soybeans were bullish.
The market has been holding chart-based support, and is expected to be in a range, analysts say.
WHEAT closed mixed, but mostly unchanged, on Friday.
On the upside, unfavourable crop conditions in the US were supportive.
But the USDA reported old crop sales of wheat hit a marketing year low in the week ending May 25, which cancelled out support from new crop sales.
