Selling Across Markets Drives Vegetable Oils Sharply Lower

Concerns about rising coronavirus cases in Europe and the death of Justice Ginsberg over the weekend left traders to reduce risk across most financial assets classes. As a result, most vegetable oil prices fell sharply, but futures continued to move higher on the Dalian exchange. The Chinese soybean oil futures gained about 1 1/2 percent, and palm oil prices rose more than 1 3/4 percent. However, the general derisking drove crude oil prices sharply lower with the benchmark October contract falling nearly 3 3/4 percent and settled back below the psychologically critical $40 per barrel level.

Given the lack of a fundamental change, generalized selling across commodity markets, and the gains in the vegetable oil prices on the Dalian exchange, it seems unlikely the trend higher in world vegetable oil prices has…