Edible oil prices in the Asian markets retreated sharply as traders booked profits at higher levels. With overnight steep declines in Chicago Board of Trade soy oil futures and crude oil prices pulling back at higher levels, most of the buyers have shown reluctance to place fresh bids at higher levels.

Most of the commodity traders are awaiting Wednesday’s Fed meeting. Futures markets generally expect U.S. policymakers to lower interest rates by a quarter of percentage point, but there’s been a school of thought that the Fed may opt to hold the line on rates in light of inflation jitters and the weakness in the dollar.

If there is any further cut in the interest rates, the immediate impact is expected to pressurize the U.S dollar and support the CBOT soy complex. Usually vegetable oil prices are expected to go further up due to the weakening of US dollar, which might led to a commodity price rally as the weaker US dollar translates into “cheaper” prices in consuming countries.

Traders will also eye on the key monthly Malaysian palm oil export and output statistics set for release later tomorrow.

At 12:05pm (Malaysian Time) crude palm oil futures for July delivery on the Bursa Malaysia derivatives exchange was down by RM 94 to RM 3416 per tonne.

On the Dalian commodity exchange, September soybean oil futures were down by CNY372 to CNY10868/ton and refined palm oil September contract declined CNY158 to CNY10200/ton.

Rape seed oil for September delivery on the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange was trading CNY422 lower at CNY11490 per tonne.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 at 12:35 pm and is filed under Palm Oil Prices News. 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.