Malaysian palm oil futures rose for a fourth consecutive session on Thursday, hitting a one-week top on short-covering and expectations of higher demand ahead of Ramadan. The benchmark palm oil contract for May delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange was 0.2 percent higher at 2,445 ringgit ($624.04) a tonne at the close of trade, after three previous sessions of gains.
It rose to its strongest level since March 7 at 2,450 ringgit earlier in the session, and has gained about 4 percent since it hit a more than one-and-a-half-year low on Monday. Trading volumes stood at 53,530 lots of 25 tonnes each on Thursday evening.
"With current low prices, there's a window of opportunity for buying," said a Kuala Lumpur-based trader. The market could also be up on expectations that demand will improve ahead of the Ramazan fasting month, said another trader.
Buyers in regions such as the Middle East usually stock up on palm oil about a month ahead of Ramadan. In other related oils, the Chicago Board of Trade's May soyabean oil contract rose 0.4 percent, while the May soyabean oil on China's Dalian Commodity Exchange was down 0.7 percent.
The Dalian May palm oil contract declined 0.2 percent. Palm oil prices are impacted by movements in rival edible oils as they compete in the global vegetable oils market.
Palm oil may bounce further to 2,459 ringgit per tonne, according to Wang Tao, a Reuters market analyst for commodities and energy technicals.
Comments
Comments are closed.