KUALA LUMPUR: Palm oil futures fell late on Wednesday, charting a second day of declines, tracking overnight falls in US soyoil on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) and on a stronger ringgit.

A stronger ringgit, palm’s currency of trade, typically makes the edible oil more expensive for holders of foreign currencies. The ringgit strengthened 0.6 per cent against the dollar to 3.9140 in late trading, its sharpest daily gain in nearly three weeks.

The benchmark palm oil contract for April delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange was down 0.5pc at 2,503 ringgit ($639.50) a tonne at the close of trade. Palm fell more than 1pc on Tuesday, snapping four days of gains. It is also down 0.4pc for the week so far.

Trading volumes stood at 29,374 lots of 25 tonnes each at the end of the trading day.

Published in Dawn, February 15th, 2018