KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian palm oil futures rose over 1 per cent on Wednesday evening, a third straight day of gains, on the back of technical buying and as the market turned bullish on forecasts that the world’s top palm importer India is likely to receive below-normal monsoon rains in 2018.

The benchmark palm oil contract for October delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange was 0.8pc higher at 2,212 ringgit ($544.29) a tonne at the end of the trading day. It earlier rose as much as 1.1pc to 2,219 ringgit, its strongest levels since July 19.

Trading volume stood at 39,245 lots of 25 tonnes each at the close of trade.

“The market is most likely short covering after a failure to go lower, and is also up on India’s weather play which will likely reduce their crop and they will need to import more,” said a Kuala Lumpur-based trader.

Published in Dawn, August 2nd, 2018