Malaysian palm oil futures hit one-week highs on Wednesday, supported by technical buying and expectations of a slight rise in end-September inventory levels.
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian palm oil futures prices fell on Tuesday after a run of daily gains, on slowing demand and profit-taking ahead of a public holiday on Wednesday.
The benchmark palm oil contract for January delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange fell 0.8 percent to 2,741 ringgit a tonne on Tuesday evening, its first fall in a week.
Earlier in the session, it fell to an intraday low of 2,738 ringgit.
Traded volumes stood at 56,668 lots of 25 tonnes each at the at the close of trade.
"Palm is seeing some profit-taking as tomorrow is a holiday," said a futures trader from Kuala Lumpur, referring to the Hindu festival of Diwali which is celebrated in Malaysia on Wednesday.
Another trader said slowing demand weighed on the market, and earlier said palm futures fundamentals looked bearish.
"We will have an increase in production and growth exports may reduce and it could hit 2 million tonnes in stocks by December," he said.
Malaysia's palm oil stocks at end-September climbed 4 percent to 2.02 million tonnes from the previous month, while production in September fell 1.7 percent from August to 1.78 million tonnes, according to data from industry regulator Malaysian Palm Oil Board last week.
Exports rose 1.8 percent to 1.52 million tonnes.
However, production in October is seen rising on-month due to the higher number of working days.
In other related edible oils, the December soybean oil contract on the Chicago Board of Trade fell 0.2 percent, while the January soybean oil contract on China's Dalian Commodity Exchange was slightly down 0.03 percent.
The January palm olein contract was up by 0.3 percent.
Palm's prices are impacted by movements of related oils as they compete for a share in the global vegetable oils market. ($1 = 4.2225 ringgit) ($1 = 64.9050 Indian rupees) ($1 = 6.6100 Chinese yuan) - Reuters
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