Malaysian palm oil futures edged up on Friday as traders closed short positions before the weekend, but gains were capped by a strengthening ringgit. "The rise is because of short-covering before the weekend," said a trader with a foreign commodities brokerage in Kuala Lumpur.
The benchmark July contract on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange rose 0.09 percent to 2,148 ringgit ($593) a tonne, with weekly gains of 0.94 percent.
Total traded volume stood at 34,999 lots of 25 tonnes, just below the usual 35,000 lots.
"The market is generally pulled down by the ringgit strength," the trader said.
The ringgit has advanced 0.8 percent against the US dollar throughout the week as oil prices showed signs of stabilisation.
A strong ringgit can reduce demand by making palm effectively more expensive for overseas buyers.
In other news in palm, Indonesia's exports of palm and palm kernel oils for March rose 14 percent to their highest since November 2014 at 2.03 million tonnes, an industry body said on Friday.
Palm may test support at 2,114 ringgit per tonne, a break below which will lead to a loss to 2,082 ringgit, said Reuters analyst Wang Tao.
In vegetable oil markets, the US soyoil May contract
lost 0.31 percent, while the most active September soybean oil contract on the Dalian Commodity Exchange edged down 0.54 percent.
Oil eased below $64 a barrel on Friday as evidence this week of rising crude supplies from OPEC members outweighed signs of a slowdown in US output and Middle East tensions.
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