Malaysian palm oil futures rose 1 percent on Friday evening, its sharpest daily gain in a week, after two sessions of declines, tracking gains in soyaoil on the US Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT). The 1 percent rise in the benchmark palm oil contract for December delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange to 2,193 ringgit ($528.05) a tonne by the close was its strongest daily gain since October 4.
In the previous session, it had hit a more than one-week low of 2,153 ringgit and is down 1.3 percent for the week. Trading volumes stood at 34,137 lots of 25 tonnes each at the close. "Palm rose on firmer soyaoil," said a Kuala Lumpur-based futures trader, referring to CBOT soyaoil.
Another trader said that a positive report from the US Agriculture Department was supportive for the soya and palm markets. The US Agriculture Department surprisingly trimmed its forecasts for both domestic corn and soyabean production on Thursday, with the soya cut stemming from a reduction in acres while the corn harvest will be lower due to smaller-than-expected yields.
The Chicago December soyabean oil contract edged up 0.3 percent on Thursday, and was last up 0.7 percent on Friday. In other related oils, the January soyabean oil contract on the Dalian Commodity Exchange was up by 0.1 percent while the Dalian January palm oil contract rose 1.2 percent. Palm oil prices are affected by movements of other edible oils as they compete for a share in the global vegetable oils market.