Crude palm oil, up 2.2 per cent this year, may extend the rally to a nine-month high of RM2,760 a metric ton, RHB Research Institute Sdn Bhd said, citing trading patterns.
Prices have “successfully reclaimed the important RM2,500 level” and traded at above the 10-week simple moving average near RM2,554, limiting its downside, according to a note from the bank today.
“The medium-term outlook remains firmly positive if it can sustain prices above these support levels,” said the note. So-called support prices may identify clusters of buy orders.
Palm oil, which surged 52 per cent last year on anticipation of higher demand from India and China, the world’s two biggest consumers, reached RM2,766 a ton on May 19. The May-delivery contract last traded at RM2,634 at 11 a.m. Singapore time.
Still, palm oil prices have registered a negative candle on the chart after three weeks of recovery, the note said. “The candlestick pattern suggests a likely retreat in the near term,” it added. A candle chart displays a commodity’s high, low, open and close for each day.
In technical analysis, investors and analysts study charts of trading patterns and prices to forecast changes in a security, commodity, currency or index.
Meanwhile, Societe Generale de Surveillance, an independent cargo surveyor, estimated that Malaysia’s palm oil exports fell 8.4 per cent in the first 29 days of February compared with the previous month.
A total of 865,593 metric tons of palm oil were tracked February 1-20, SGS said in an e-mailed report today. Malaysia exported 945,311 tons of palm oil during the same period in January, according to the surveyor.– Bloomberg
Source : Business Times
