MarketsFarm — The size of the fund short position in canola rose in February and likely grew even larger in March, as weekly Commitments of Traders data slowly trickles out from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
CFTC data has stalled since a ‘cyber-related incident’ delayed the release of the data for weeks.
As of Feb. 21, the net managed money short position in canola came in at 44,359 contracts (59,110 short/14,751 long), marking the largest net short position since March 2020.
Open interest in the canola market came in at 268,996 contracts on Feb. 21, but has since climbed to 296,227 as of Thursday, according to ICE Futures data. The increase in open interest came during the same time futures prices lost more than $50 per tonne, which would indicate traders were putting on more short positions rather than exiting longs.
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The CFTC put out three reports over the past week and should soon be once again up to date with its data.
At the Chicago Board of Trade, the managed money net long position in soybeans came in at 187,000 contracts on Feb. 21, while the corn long position was at about 217,000 contracts.
In wheat, the Chicago soft wheat market reported a net short position of about 74,200 contracts. The fund position in Kansas City wheat was showing a net long of about 15,300. In Minneapolis, the net long position was around 3,100 contracts.
— Phil Franz-Warkentin is an associate editor/analyst with MarketsFarm in Winnipeg.
