By Phil Franz-Warkentin, MarketsFarm
WINNIPEG, March 11 (MarketsFarm) – The ICE Futures canola market held onto small gains at Friday’s close, settling just below the contract highs hit earlier in the week as investors consolidated positions.
Gains in Chicago Board of Trade soyoil futures provided spillover support. However, any support from soyoil was countered by overnight losses in Malaysian palm oil, strength in the Canadian dollar and losses in CBOT soybeans.
Ideas that canola remains underpriced compared to other oilseeds, despite its recent strength, provided underlying support as the market continued to work to ration demand.
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About 11,231 canola contracts traded on Friday, which compares with Thursday when 13,327 contracts changed hands. Spreading accounted for 3,394 of the contracts traded.
SOYBEAN futures at the Chicago Board of Trade were lower on Friday after moving to both sides of unchanged in choppy activity. Optimism over talk of a possible ceasefire in Ukraine put some initial pressure on all markets, although the situation in the country remains highly volatile.
Malaysian palm oil ending stocks came in above trade expectations in a report out overnight, putting some pressure on world oilseed markets. Soyoil had initially moved lower, but found support and was up sharply by the final bell.
The United States Department of Agriculture announced private export sales of 264,000 tonnes of soybeans to China this morning, providing some support.
Declining production estimates out of South America also continued to underpin the bean market.
CORN futures were pulled in both directions on Friday, finishing mostly higher in sympathy with wheat.
The USDA announced private export sales of 128,900 tonnes of corn to unknown destinations this morning.
The United Nations food agency said Friday that global food and feed prices could rise by eight to 20 per cent as a result of the war in Ukraine. An estimated 20 to 30 per cent of fields in the country could go unplanted or unharvested this year.
However, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy was urging that crops still get planted.
WHEAT had started the day seeing continued follow-through selling, but was higher by the close on ideas that the losses were starting to look overdone. Positioning ahead of the weekend was a feature.
France’s winter wheat crop was rated 92 per cent good to excellent, down one point from the previous week.
