Commodities Roundup:
Business Times
Saturday - August 09, 2008
CPO FUTURES
Crude palm oil (CPO) futures on Bursa Malaysia Derivatives closed lower yesterday on active profit-taking activities, dealers said.
“Basically, yesterday’s market declined due to the increase in crude oil prices and some profit-taking after two days of gains,” one of the dealers said.
“The fundamentals at the moment are very fragile and therefore the players prefered quick profit ahead of the weekend break rather than wait until next week,” he said.
Currently, crude oil was traded at US119.58 per barrel.
At the close yesterday, the benchmark third-month October contract went down by RM66 to RM2,779 per tonne.
Of other contracts, August 2008 fell RM53 to close at RM2,787 per tonne, September 2008 declined RM53 to RM2,785 per tonne, and both November 2008 and December 2008 lost RM71 each to RM2,780 per tonne and RM2,778 per tonne respectively.
Total volume dropped to 10,681 lots compared with 13,252 lots on Thursaday while open interest fell slightly to 53,448 contracts from 54,581 contracts previously. On the physical market, CPO for August shipments in the southern region was lower at RM2,008 per tonne compared to RM2,870 per tonne on Thursday.
