Malaysia palm oil futures weekly

Introduction: Malaysia palm oil futures closed higher in the week ending February 18, 2005, the first full trading week after the Spring Festival Soybean production in South America is likely to be damaged by the weather due to strong palm oil exports so far in February, which was boosted by a strong rebound in prices in the peripheral vegetable oil and oilseed futures markets during the Spring Festival holiday Last week, the Chicago Board of trade closed at $442 a tonne in March, up $1.3 a tonne from a week ago According to official data, Malaysian palm oil production in January was 1.15 million tons, 12% lower than that in December, but the palm oil storage at the end of January still increased to 1.52 million tons, 1.8% higher than that of last month, according to MPOB On the whole, the report is a little bit short because inventory is higher than the market expected But with Malaysia's palm oil exports doing well in February, market participants believe that palm oil stocks will continue to decline from their peak at the end of January in the next one to two months This helps to improve market sentiment Another important news affecting the palm oil market this week is the decision of the Indian government to raise the import tariff of vegetable oil, from 65% to 80% for crude palm oil and from 75% to 90% for refined palm oil Although the Indian government's approach seems to take into account the interests of consumers and domestic oil seed growers, the final result is a slight increase in tariff levels Traders were worried that this would weaken demand for palm oil in India But strong export data helped ease concerns about slowing demand in India Recent export data show that Malaysia's exports to other countries have performed well Malaysia exported 544861 tons of palm oil in the first half of February, up 12.6% from the same period last month, according to SGS, a shipping research agency Another agency, its, has a higher figure of 579005 tonnes On Monday, its and SGS, Malaysia's shipping research institutions, will release the full month palm oil export data of February, respectively Market participants expect the export to continue to improve On the spot market, Malaysian crude palm oil prices for January delivery were at rm1350 per ton, up rm60 from a week ago The 24 degree refined palm oil for the first quarter was up $12.50 at $375 a tonne From a technical point of view, the technical support of the main contract is at rm1330 and the resistance is at rm1380 On the weekly chart, the BMD benchmark may crude palm oil contract closed at rm1342 per ton, 57 ringgit higher than last week's closing price of rm1285 There were 23736 empty sets, 1054 fewer than last week's 24790.