Malaysian palm oil futures slipped on Friday, a second straight session of declines, as a stronger ringgit dented sentiment. A firmer ringgit, palm's currency of trade, usually makes the tropical oil more expensive for foreign buyers. The ringgit surged to its highest in nearly two years on Friday, and was last up 0.4 percent at 3.8690 per dollar.
The benchmark palm oil contract for April delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange was down 0.4 percent to 2,484 ringgit ($642.03) a tonne at the close of trade. However, palm futures were up 1.6 percent this week, having hit a one-week peak after three consecutive sessions of gains.
Trading volumes stood at 39,967 lots of 25 tonnes each at the end of the trading day. "The market is still under pressure on an extremely firm ringgit today," said a Kuala Lumpur-based trader. Palm declined over 1 percent in its previous trading session on the back of ringgit's gains. The ringgit strengthened against the dollar following a move by Malaysia's central bank to raise key interest rates for the first time in 3-1/2 years on Thursday.
Palm oil prices are also impacted by performances in other edible oils, as they compete for a share in the global vegetable oils market. The March soyabean oil contract on the Chicago Board of Trade gained as much as 0.4 percent, while the May soyabean oil on the Dalian Commodity Exchange climbed up to 0.4 percent.
In other related edible oils, the Dalian May palm oil contract dipped 0.1 percent. Palm oil may drop to 2,462 ringgit, as it has failed to break a resistance at 2,519 ringgit per tonne, said Wang Tao, a Reuters market analyst for commodities and energy technicals.