Canola and wheat prices have shown big swings but overall remain on track to go higher over the long-term.
Portfolio Manager at Ventum Financial David Derwin notes canola prices have been on a positive trend since the beginning of the year.
Over the last two weeks, the November canola contract been trading between $810 and $840 a metric tonne. On Tuesday, the contract closed at $824.30, down $10.90 on the day.
"And that 840 level has been very much an overhead resistance level in the sense that it would reach that two, three, four times and always come back down a bit. But with all grain markets still pointing higher, it wouldn't take much for canola to break through that level." he said.
Wheat prices are slightly different with pressure on the high-end at the beginning of the month, when ongoing fighting between Russia and Ukraine caused supply concerns.
"Since then wheat has come off maybe about, depending on which market you look at, 50, 60 cents US a bushel, but still also within a longer term uptrend as well." he said.
The December Minneapolis wheat contract was down 10 cents to close at $7.36 1/4 a bushel. December Kansas City wheat was down 13 1/4 cents to $7.81 and December Chicago wheat was down 9 1/2 cents to $7.17 1/4.
Derwin can see harvest pressure more on cash prices than futures as this season has been variable across the Prairies.
"That will have a little bit of influence, I mean, as people take wheat off the field and decide just to maybe dry it and sell it or to sell it and similar thing with canola. There is a little bit of pressure there, but the fact that we really haven't moved down very much in what is typically a bit of a seasonal lull in the harvest pricing period shows that there's certainly some underlying strength or at least some underlying concern about availability and demand. It must be strong as well to keep that up.
"So, there was some influence, I'm sure, especially if you look at maybe some of the cash prices, but futures markets have also been fairly steady despite the time of year."
And he wouldn't be surprised to see a premium price on top graded commodities once harvest is complete.
"There could be situations where there might be pockets of production that wasn't quite as hoped for. The commodity can vary, whether it's a pulse or a durum or wheat or canola or whatever it might be. The variability in the production and the growing season and now harvest is quite something across the different regions. So there certainly could be sort of good pockets of buying that are going to come in and there will be some areas too where production comes off and it's quite good.
"And so it's going to be, certainly as a grower, you definitely want to keep a close eye on what local prices are doing as well as the futures markets, right? Because they all work together."
Derwin reminds producers to keep an eye on prices as they're busy with harvest.
