JAKARTA: Malaysian palm oil futures opened low on Friday, tracking weakness in rival vegetable oils at Chicago and Dalian exchanges and were set to book a weekly loss.

Palm trades low on sell-off, tracks weakness in soyoil at Chicago

The benchmark palm oil contract for February delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange lost 27 ringgit, or 0.55%, to 4,894 ringgit ($1,099.78) a metric ton during the morning trade. The contract has fallen 4.49% so far this week.

Fundamentals

• Soyoil lost 0.52% at the Chicago Board of Trade. Dalian’s most-active soyoil contract fell 1.1%, while its palm oil contract gained 0.42%.

• Palm oil tracks price movements of rival edible oils as it competes for a share of the global vegetable oils market.

• India’s palm oil imports in November fell 0.4% from October to 841,993 metric tons, the Solvent Extractors’ Association of India said on Thursday.

• Cargo surveyor Intertek Testing Services said on Tuesday that exports of Malaysian palm oil products for Dec. 1-10 rose 3.9%, while according to independent inspection company AmSpec Agri Malaysia it rose 1.1%.

• Palm oil is expected to test resistance at 4,961 ringgit per metric ton, a break above which could open the way towards 5,045 ringgit, Reuters technical analyst Wang Tao said.