Malaysian palm oil fell on Tuesday, stretching its losses into a third session, due to rising stocks and slowing demand from key importing nations. The January benchmark palm oil contract on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange closed 0.9 percent lower at 2,309 ringgit ($539.36) a tonne by the end of the trading day. It had earlier reached a one-week low of 2,278 ringgit.
"We're seeing a follow through from selling yesterday," said a trader with a foreign commodities brokerage in Kuala Lumpur. "From what we've gathered so far from plantations, October's production could be up 5 percent." Traded volume stood at 46,443 lots of 25 tonnes each, above the average 35,000 lots usually traded in a day.
Palm fell in afternoon trade on Monday, as prices dropped on slowing demand, inventory build-up and weak economic data from top palm oil consumer China. Palm oil may fall to 2,264 ringgit per tonne, as it has broken a support at 2,319 ringgit, said Reuters market analyst for commodities and energy technicals Wang Tao. In other vegetable oil markets, the US December soyoil contract rose 0.1 percent while the January soybean oil contract on the Dalian Commodity Exchange lost 0.3 percent.