Malaysian palm oil price down on stronger ringgit

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian palm oil futures dropped on Thursday due to market corrections and a strengthening ringgit.
    The benchmark December palm oil contract on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange closed 2.9 percent lower on Thursday at 2,128 ringgit ($500.71) a tonne, after seeing consecutive rises in the last two weeks. 
    Traded volume stood at 66,318 lots of 25 tonnes each, well above the average 35,000 lots usually traded in a day. 
    The ringgit gaining against the dollar is the main factor for the downtrend, said a trader based in Kuala Lumpur, but traders are also taking profit after the market went up in the last ten days. 
    "It was a bit of an expected correction as the market run up was too fast," he said. "Prices should find support again at 2,100 ringgit."
    The ringgit strengthened against the dollar on Thursday by 0.7
percent, reaching 4.2500 per dollar on Thursday. It is emerging Asia's
worst performing currency, having lost about 18 percent so far this
year. A weaker ringgit usually lends some support to palm prices.
    Palm oil may drop to 2,068 ringgit per tonne as it has broken a
support at 2,132 ringgit, said Reuters market analyst Wang Tao.
 
    In other vegetable oil markets, the most active January soybean
oil contract on the Dalian Commodity Exchange was down 0.15
percent, while the U.S. December soyoil contract lost 0.9
percent.
    Oil prices fell below $50 a barrel on Thursday on weak Japanese
data, drawing concerns on global growth prospects and outweighing the
impact of declining U.S. crude oil stocks. 
    Palm oil often takes price direction from crude oil, as vegetable
oils are increasingly used in making renewable fuels.
    
  Palm, soy and crude oil prices at 1016 GMT
                                                                      
  Contract        Month    Last   Change     Low    High  Volume
  MY PALM OIL      OCT5    2055   -52.00    2050    2095     385
  MY PALM OIL      NOV5    2095   -53.00    2091    2135   16040
  MY PALM OIL      DEC5    2128   -64.00    2125    2178   32158
  CHINA PALM OLEIN JAN6    4276    -8.00    4270    4328 1018844
  CHINA SOYOIL     JAN6    5384    -8.00    5382    5430  527706
  CBOT SOY OIL     DEC5   26.64    +0.00   26.60   26.91    5658
  INDIA PALM OIL   SEP5    0.00    +0.00    0.00    0.00       0
  INDIA SOYOIL     OCT5    0.00    +0.00    0.00    0.00       0
  NYMEX CRUDE      OCT5   46.51    -0.64   46.33   47.57   32931
                                                                      
  Palm oil prices in Malaysian ringgit per tonne
  CBOT soy oil in U.S. cents per pound
  Dalian soy oil and RBD palm olein in Chinese yuan per tonne
  India soy oil in Indian rupee per 10 kg
  Crude in U.S. dollars per barrel
 
($1 = 4.2500 ringgit)
($1 = 66.1500 Indian rupees)
($1 = 6.3645 Chinese yuan)
- Reuters