Palm oil falls for fifth straight day as rival oils decline

SINGAPORE: Malaysian palm oil futures fell for a fifth consecutive session on Friday, as they tracked losses in rival oils on the Dalian Commodity Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT).

The benchmark palm oil contract for August delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange fell 72 ringgit, or 1.9%, to 3, 773 ringgit ($917.22) a tonne during early trade.

For the week, the contract is set to fall after two straight weekly gains. Refinitiv data shows a weekly fall of 8.6% so far to 3, 781 ringgit, the lowest since April 16.

“Palm’s down due to weak external markets,” a Kuala Lumpur based trader told Reuters, referring to rival oils on the Dalian and CBOT.

Dalian’s most-active soyoil contract fell 0.7%, while its palm oil contract slipped 2%. Soyoil prices on the CBOT slid 0.4%.

Palm oil is affected by price movements in related oils as they compete for a share in the global vegetable oils market.

Palm oil may fall into a range of 3, 495 ringgit to 3, 635 ringgit per tonne, as it has broken a support at 3, 888 ringgit per tonne, Reuters analyst Wang Tao said.

FUNDAMENTALS

* U.S. bond yields fell to three-month lows and a broad gauge of Asian shares rose on Friday as investors saw enough one-off factors in U.S. consumer price data to back the Federal Reserve’s conviction that rising inflation will be transitory. ($1 = 4.1135 ringgit)

The Star

Tags: Malaysia, Singapore, palm oil