Palm oil ticks lower amid caution over trade

Malaysian palm oil futures ticked lower on Monday, extending losses into a seventh week as traders remained cautious due to trade and production data, despite signs that shipments from the world's second-largest producer increased this month.
By the midday break, the benchmark palm oil contract for October on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange was 0.29 percent lower at 2,036 ringgit ($519) a tonne, erasing early gains.
"It came lower because of the MPOB report, which is considered to be bearish," said a trader with a foreign commodities brokerage, referring to regulator Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB). "Production is higher, and closing stocks were higher."
Malaysia's palm oil stocks at the end of July rose 5.29 percent to 2.27 million tonnes from a revised 2.15 million at the end of June, MPOB said on Monday, while production increased 2.93 percent.
"The market was getting ready for this report and maybe in the afternoon it will react to the export numbers and go higher," the trader said.
Exports of palm oil products for August 1-10 jumped 57.6 percent to 498,993 tonnes from 316,492 tonnes for July 1-10, cargo surveyor Intertek Testing Services said.
Rival Societe Generale de Surveillance is due to release its August 1-10 export data later on Monday.
"We have seen enough of a slide, unless we see the fundamentals (worsen) again," the trader said.
Last week the contract fell for the sixth week in a row, its longest weekly losing streak in seven years.
The price could drop to a low of 1,900 ringgit a tonne by the end of September because of ample supplies and poor demand, vegetable oil analyst Dorab Mistry said on Thursday, but it may recover to 2,100-2,300 ringgit by the end of November.
In other vegetable oils, the US September soyoil contract was up 0.57 percent in early Asian trade, while the most active soybean oil contract on the Dalian Commodity Exchange gained 1.39 percent.
Crude oil futures fell in early Asian trading, touching multi-month lows after disappointing export data from China over the weekend.