January 15, 2010

ICE rapeseed weakens on expanded CBOT soy losses 

Rapeseed contracts on the ICE Futures Canada platform were trading at mainly lower levels at midday (Jan 14).

Early weakness in rapeseed was linked to the strength of the Canadian dollar and the continued absence of fresh export demand, market watchers said.

The bearish sentiment in rapeseed also was tied to the large US and world soy supply situation and the pending harvest of a record-large south American soy crop, traders said.

Bearish chart signals contributed to the downward price slide experienced by rapeseed.

Adding to the price weakness in rapeseed were the lower calls for CBOT soy and soyoil futures. While both commodities opened mostly lower, the weakness in rapeseed was amplified when the declines in both CBOT soy and soyoil expanded toward midmorning, brokers said.

Some underlying support in rapeseed came from sentiment that values have now reached oversold price levels, and need upward correction. Scale-down exporter pricing of old export business was also an underpinning price influence for rapeseed.

The absence of producer offerings of rapeseed into the cash pipeline due to extremely unattractive cash bids from elevator companies also helped to restrict the price declines in the commodity, traders said.

There were an estimated 8,339 rapeseed contracts traded at 10:24 CST.