Palm oil down, hits lowest in more than a week

Malaysian palm oil futures slipped for a second day on Monday in light volume to their lowest level in more than a week as competing vegetable oil markets fell and as the ringgit strengthened, traders said. By Monday's close, the benchmark August contract on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives exchange had edged down 0.3 percent to 2,182 ringgit ($608.77) a tonne, a second day of losses after shedding 0.8 percent on Friday. Earlier in the session, the contract touched the 2,169 ringgit level, its lowest since May 8.
"The market was down a bit because the ringgit has strengthened a bit, and Dalian RBD palm olein is down a bit as well," a trader with a foreign commodities brokerage in Kuala Lumpur, said, referring to the Refined, Bleached and Deodorised Palm Olein contract on the Dalian Commodity Exchange. Total traded volume stood at 30,917 lots of 25 tonnes each, just below the average 35,000 lots traded. Technical charts show that palm could fall to 2,148 ringgit per tonne, as a drop on May 15 suggests the completion of a rebound from the April 29 low of 2,070 ringgit.
The Malaysian ringgit edged down 0.17 percent against the dollar on Monday, but has gained around 0.8 percent over the past week and around 3.8 percent in the last two months. In other markets, oil prices rose on Monday after Islamic State militants said they had seized control of the key city of Ramadi in western Iraq, raising fears of deeper turmoil in the oil-producing country. The US July soyoil contract edged up 0.09 percent in late Asian trade, while the most active September soybean oil contract on China's Dalian Commodity Exchange lost 0.37 percent. The most active September palm oil contract on the Dalian bourse fell 0.7 percent.