KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian palm oil futures erased early gains and ended lower on Wednesday, rattled by weakness in global markets as coronavirus cases spiked outside China and sparked fears of a pandemic.

The benchmark palm oil contract for May delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange closed to trade down 17 ringgit, or 0.7 per cent, to 2,421 ringgit a tonne.

Palm oil gained as much as 1.07pc during early trade, but have lost almost 8pc so far this week.

“Soybean oil prices are dropping and there are no major announcements,” said a Kuala Lumpur based trader.

Published in Dawn, February 27th, 2020