By Phil Franz-Warkentin, MarketsFarm
WINNIPEG, June 22 (MarketsFarm) The ICE Futures canola market continued its speculative selloff on Wednesday, dropping sharply lower as speculators bailed out of long positions.
In addition to the bearish technical signals, losses in outside vegetable oil markets contributed to the declines in canola, with Chicago soyoil, European rapeseed and Malaysian palm oil all falling lower.
A lack of significant weather concerns across the Prairies added to the bearish sentiment, according to participants. Seeding has all but wrapped up, with recent rains helping alleviate any dryness issues for the time being.
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About 32,350 canola contracts traded on Wednesday, which compares with Tuesday when 36,445 contracts changed hands. Spreading accounted for 15,060 of the contracts traded.
SOYBEAN futures at the Chicago Board of Trade were weaker on Wednesday, as heavy losses in crude oil and world vegetable oil markets weighed on values.
Chart-based selling was a feature, as fund money exited the market and a move below former support triggered additional speculative liquidation.
Soybean seeding across the United States was pegged at 94 per cent complete in the latest weekly U.S. Department of Agriculture report, which would be one point ahead of the average for this time of year. Quality ratings dipped slightly on the week, moving down two points in the good-to-excellent category to 68 per cent.
CORN was mixed, with gains in the nearby July contract and losses in the more deferred months.
Corn planting has wrapped up across the U.S., with 95 per cent of the crop now emerged, according to the weekly report.
The crop was pegged at 70 per cent good-to-excellent which was down two points on the week after hot temperatures caused some distress. However, forecasts call for some more favourable weather over the next week.
Spring seeding has reportedly wrapped up in Ukraine, with corn area of 4.6 million hectares down by about 16 per cent on the year.
WHEAT was mixed, with slight gains in Chicago soft wheat and losses in the Minneapolis and Kansas City hard red wheats.
The U.S. wheat harvest is running slightly ahead of average, at 25 per cent complete.
Spring wheat was 98 per cent planted in the U.S., with quality ratings at 59 per cent good-to-excellent.
