SINGAPORE: Malaysian palm oil futures fell for a third consecutive session to close at a three-month low on Friday, tracking weaker Dalian rivals, while palm oil data from the Malaysia Palm Oil Board (MPOB) earlier in the day weighed on sentiment.
The benchmark palm oil contract for July delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange closed down 21 ringgit, or 0.55%, to 3,810 ringgit ($804.31) a metric ton, the lowest close since mid-February.
The contract lost 0.88% this week, marking a fifth consecutive week-on-week decline, its longest weekly losing streak since December 2017. Dalian’s most-active soyoil contract and its palm oil contract both lost 2.04%.
Soyoil prices on the Chicago Board of Trade rose 1.01% amid slow progress on soy harvesting in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul state. Palm oil is affected by price movements in related oils as they compete for a share in the global vegetable oils market.
Malaysia’s palm oil stocks increased at the end of April for the first time in six months as production jumped despite a drop in exports, MPOB said on Friday.
The MPOB report is “slightly bearish” as most of the production rise-related scenarios have almost been priced in, and bargain buying may be observed from a key support cluster at 3,690 ringgit, Anilkumar Bagani, commodity research head at Mumbai-based Sunvin Group said. Market participants are also eyeing the release of a US Department of Agriculture supply-and-demand report tonight, Bagani said. Investors are expecting the USDA’s monthly crop production and World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates reports to show ample supplies in the United States and globally.
Malaysia’s industrial production in March rose 2.4% from a year earlier, below expectations, government data showed on Friday. Exports of Malaysian palm oil products for May 1-10 fell 14.2% to 369,920 metric tons from 431,190 metric tons shipped during April 1-10, cargo surveyor Intertek Testing Services said on Friday. Independent inspection company AmSpec Agri Malaysia said on Friday that exports fell 14.8%. The Malaysian ringgit, palm’s currency of trade, strengthened 0.03% against the dollar.
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