JAKARTA: Malaysian crude palm oil futures jumped 1.3 per cent yesterday to the highest closing level in six and a half months as investors continued to bet on good demand and prospects of tight supply, traders said.

“The market momentum has picked up after the recent brief retracement, so on technical grounds it looks like heading towards higher level,” said Donny Khor, senior vice president for futures and options at OSK Investment Bank Bhd.

The benchmark March contract on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange settled up RM34 at RM2,620 ($762.74) per tonne, the highest closing level since June 1.

Overall volume shot up to 22,564 lots of 25 tonnes each, more than double the usual 10,000 lots.

Traders and analysts remained bullish on palm oil fundamentals going into next year, with Malaysia’s end-December palm oil stocks, which usually correlate inversely with palm oil price, unlikely to rise above 2.0 million tonnes because of falling output.

Khor also said that the palm oil market was not affected by last week’s decision by Unilever, the world’s largest user of palm oil, to suspend new purchases from Indonesia’s top palm oil firm PT SMART on environmental concerns.

“If they don’t buy from Indonesia, they have to buy from somewhere else from those who are qualified to sell to them,” he said.

In the Malaysian physical market, palm oil for December delivery was traded at RM2,535 per tonne in the southern and central regions. Source: Business Times

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