Palm falls for second session as rival edible oils weigh

Malaysian palm oil futures dropped for a second session on Wednesday, weighed down by weakness in Chicago and Dalian vegetable oils.

The benchmark palm oil contract for November delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange was down 61 ringgit, or 1.36 per cent, to 4,418 ringgit (US$1,049.16) a metric ton by the midday break.

Weakness in rival oilseeds during Asian hours resulted in lower opening of Bursa Malaysia’s CPO futures, a Kuala Lumpur-based trader said.

Malaysia’s palm oil stocks at the end of August rose 4.18 per cent from the previous month to 2.2 million metric tons, data from MPOB showed on Wednesday.

Dalian’s most-active soyoil contract lost 1.21 per cent, while its palm oil contract was down 1.48 per cent. Soyoil prices on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) shed 0.1 per cent.

Palm oil tracks the price movements of rival edible oils as it competes for a share of the global vegetable oils market.

Tags: Malaysia, palm oil, futures, benchmark contract, soyoil