Malaysian palm oil futures declined on Friday, their second straight day of losses, tracking weaker related edible oils such as US soyaoil on the Chicago Board of Trade and palm olein on China's Dalian Commodity Exchange. The benchmark palm oil contract for January delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange was down 0.8 percent at 2,222 ringgit ($534.65) a tonne at the end of the trading day. It earlier fell as much as 1.1 percent to a four day low of 2,215 ringgit.
The market, however, is up 1.3 percent this week. Trading volumes stood at 25,727 lots of 25 tonnes each at the close of trade. "The continuous drop in US soyaoil and weakness in China's palm olein may extend palm's downside," said a futures trader in Kuala Lumpur. The Chicago December soyabean oil contract had dropped 1.8 percent on Thursday, its sharpest single-day decline in three months, on disappointing weekly export sales and improving US harvest weather.
It was last up 0.3 percent on Friday around 1015 GMT. In other related oils, the January soyabean oil contract on the Dalian Commodity Exchange dropped 1 percent while the Dalian January palm oil contract fell 0.7 percent. Palm oil prices are affected by movements of other edible oils as they compete for a share in the global vegetable oils market.
Palm oil may stabilise around a support at 2,219 ringgit and then retest a resistance at 2,262 ringgit per tonne, said Wang Tao, a Reuters market analyst for commodities and energy technicals.