Business Times

Tuesday - January 29, 2008

CPO FUTURES

Crude palm oil (CPO) futures prices on Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Bhd closed lower yesterday, tracking a plunge in the equity market regionally amid concerns about the US economy, a dealer said.

“The equity market dropped sharply today and affected global commodities prices especially CPO,” he said.

He noted that the bearish sentiment for CPO was also contributed by the weak export data released last Friday.

Last Friday cargo surveyor Intertek Testing Services said the CPO exports for Jan 1-25 were down 29.8 per cent to 784,439 tonnes compared to the previous month’s 1.117 million tonnes.

Another cargo surveyor, Societe Generale de Surveillance, said exports declined 27.1 per cent to 816,471 tonnes for the period.

The CPO also lost its shine after crude oil prices subsided to US$89 (US$1 = RM3.27) a barrel on US recession fears.

At the close yesterday, Feb 2008 declined RM94 to RM3,170 per tonne, March 2008 slipped RM102 to RM3,147 while April 2008 and May 2008 contracts depreciated by RM105 and RM99 respectively to RM3,150.

Volume rose to 19,109 lots from 15,453 lots posted last Friday while open interest went up to 42,177 contracts from 42,064 contracts previously.

On the physical market, February South slipped to RM3,200 a tonne from RM3,270 per tonne last Friday.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 30th, 2008 at 12:52 pm and is filed under The Business Times - Commodity Roundup. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.