Indonesian Flooding Sparks Reversal in Vegetable Oil Markets

Palm oil and soybean oil prices bounced from overnight lows to post gains on Friday despite continued weakness in vegetable oil futures on the Dalian exchange. Concerns about flooding in Indonesia helped support palm oil futures, while technically-driven buying and recovery in soybean values contributed to the gains in the soybean oil market. Crude oil prices were higher overnight, which lent support to palm oil futures but sold off ahead of the U.S. open. Crude rallied to the high of the U.S. trading session at the close of agricultural trading, which may have provided limited support for soybean oil prices. However, selling after the agricultural markets closed left the benchmark November West Texas Intermediate (WTI) contract marginally lower for the day, but still above the psychologically critical $40 level.

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