Malaysian palm oil down

Malaysian crude palm oil futures shed early gains to close Wednesday down as traders liquidated positions on growing fears that exports for May would fall short of last month's figures, dealers said.
Strong gains in soyoil futures on the Chicago Board of Trade had earlier helped palm oil prices to rise.
Traders' expectations that palm oil exports for the period from May 1 to 25, due to be reported by cargo surveyors on Thursday, would range between 825,000 and 831,000 tonnes, boosted the volume of lots that changed hands in afternoon trade.
"That is a very significant drop, compared to about one million tonnes done last month, a drop that people cannot assume can be made up in the last few days," one dealer said. "So we are going to do 200,000 tonnes less than last month." The August contract on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives closed down 3 ringgit at 1,438 ringgit ($395) a tonne. June was down 6 ringgit at 1,418.
Overall volume stood at 6,853 lots of 25 tonnes each.
On Wednesday the Malaysian ringgit fell to 3.6441 to the US dollar from 3.617 the day before, after gaining 4 percent so far this year. A weaker ringgit makes palm oil relatively less expensive to overseas buyers.
July soyoil closed 0.51 cent higher at 25.43 cents a lb on Tuesday, and the back months were up 0.47 to 0.53 cent. The strength in the soyoil pit also helped boost soybean futures. Traders said palm oil would meet resistance at 1,450 ringgit a tonne and support was seen at 1,430 ringgit.
"One of the reasons the market liquidated in the afternoon session was that it could not hold over 1,450, which is a big resistance," one dealer said.
A Reuters poll showed on Tuesday that palm oil stocks in Malaysia would rise 5.3 percent in May from 1,510,048 tonnes a month ago because of lower exports. Exports are likely to drop 15.2 percent to 1,050,000 tonnes this month from 1,238,881 in April.
In the physical market, traders were offering cargoes for spot shipments at 1,400 ringgit a tonne. But buyers were keen on deals at 1,395 levels. Volumes remained thin.