Malaysian palm oil futures declined on Wednesday evening in a second straight session of losses, as the contract tracked weakness in related edible oils. The benchmark palm oil contract for September delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange was down 0.7 percent at 2,298 ringgit ($568.25) a tonne at the end of the trading day. It earlier fell to a one-week low of 2,290 ringgit.
Trading volumes stood at 35,039 lots of 25 tonnes each at the close of trade. "Palm oil on Bursa may extend downside in view of persistent weakness in soyaoil on jitteriness over the US-China trade war," said a futures trader from Kuala Lumpur. Another futures trader said palm was also tracking related oils on China's Dalian Commodity Exchange, and that the market overall was bearish "over risks on the global market," referring to the trade wars as well.
Soyabean futures were anchored by an ongoing US-China trade dispute that pushed prices to the lowest close in two years on Monday. The Chicago December soyabean oil contract had declined 0.4 percent on Tuesday, and is closed for a public holiday on Wednesday.
In other related oils, the September soyabean oil on China's Dalian Commodity Exchange fell 0.3 percent and the Dalian September palm oil contract dropped 1.1 percent. Palm oil prices track the performance of other edible oils as they compete for a share in the global vegetable oils market.
Palm oil may test a support at 2,290 ringgit per tonne, a break below which could cause a loss to the next support at 2,270 ringgit, said Wang Tao, a Reuters market analyst for commodities and energy technicals.