Palm slips as competing vegetable oils weaken, ringgit strengthens
Category: Oilseeds
(Reuters) – May 18 Malaysian palm oil futures slipped for a second day on Monday as competing vegetable oil markets fell and as the ringgit strengthened, traders said.
By the midday break, the benchmark July contract on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives exchange had edged down 0.69 percent to 2,173 ringgit ($608.77) a tonne, heading for a second day of losses after shedding 0.8 percent on Friday.
“The market was down a bit because the ringgit has strengthened a bit, and Dalian RBD palm olein is down a bit as well,” said a trader with a foreign commodities brokerage in Kuala Lumpur, referring to the Refined, Bleached and Deodorised Palm Olein contract on the Dalian Commodity Exchange.
Total traded volume stood at 13,979 lots of 25 tonnes each, above the average 12,500 lots traded by midday.
Technical charts show that palm may fall to 2,148 ringgit per tonne, as the drop on May 15 suggests the completion of a rebound from the April 29 low of 2,070 ringgit.
The Malaysian ringgit edged down 0.24 percent against the dollar on Monday, but has gained around 0.8 percent over the past week and around 3.8 percent in the last two months.
In other markets, oil prices rose on Monday on supply concerns in the Middle East following fighting in Iraq and Yemen, but Iranian comments that OPEC was unlikely to cut output as well as signs of strengthening U.S. production capped gains.
The U.S. July soyoil contract edged down 0.33 percent in early Asian trade, while the most active September soybean oil contract on China’s Dalian Commodity Exchange lost 0.95 percent. The most active September palmoil contract on the Dalian bourse fell 1.05 percent.
