Vegetable Oil Markets Move Lower on Coronavirus Concerns

Vegetable oil markets continued to move lower on Thursday as concerns about a rising number of coronavirus infections continued to weigh on the outlook for an economic recovery. Overnight weakness in crude oil also drove selling in palm oil futures, but soybean oil largely ignored a sharp rally in West Texas Intermediate (WTI) prices during U.S. trading hours. Texas is one of the states with the highest number of new cases, which may have contributed to the rally in WTI values despite several state governments and corporations taking steps to slow the spread of the virus and, as a consequence, slow economic activity. If crude oil continues to rally, vegetable oil traders will need to balance rising crude oil prices with slowing demand. However, trading on Thursday seemed to indicate traders would focus more on the economic impact of the disease…