JAKARTA, Dec 16: Malaysian palm futures finished at a one-week low on Tuesday after falling for the third day in a row in the absence of any fresh news to renew buying interest, traders said.

The benchmark March palm oil contract on the Bursa Malaysia’s Derivatives Exchange settled down 35 ringgit, or 2.22 per cent, at 1,545 ringgit ($435) per ton.

Other traded contracts fell between 31 and 36 ringgit. The overall volume was 9,676 lots of 25 tons each.

We have seen some bullish and bearish news recently. But whatever the news, either record stocks or higher exports, they have been priced in, said a trader at a commodities brokerage in Kuala Lumpur.

So the market is trapped in a trading range at this moment and the range is getting narrower, the trader said.

After failing to break its recent high of 1,658 ringgit, the benchmark contract is now set to fall further, possibly to briefly breach the 1,500-ringgit level, the trader said.

Exports of Malaysian palm oil products for Dec. 1-15 jumped 39.3 per cent to 868,629 tons from 623,530 tons shipped between Nov. 1 and 15, cargo surveyor Intertek Testing Services said on Monday.

In Indonesia, the world’s largest palm producer, the state marketing centre sold 3,000 tons out of 5,000 tons of palm oil it offered in an auction at a top price of 5,199 rupiah ($0.47) per kg.

The Jakarta-based centre, which normally sells palm oil from state plantations, failed to sell the entire 3,000 tons of crude palm oil it offered on Monday.

Producers in Medan — home to Belawan port, Indonesia’s key port for palm oil exports — sold palm oil at 5,150 rupiah per kg. They did not hold a palm oil auction on Monday.

Meanwhile, refiners in Jakarta sold refined, bleached, deodorised (RBD) palm oil, used as cooking oil, at 5,900 rupiah per kg, unchanged from Monday.

In the Malaysian physical market, crude palm oil for delivery in December was traded at 1,550-1,555 ringgit a ton in the southern region and 1,550 ringgit a ton in the central region.—Reuters