Palm oil slips

Kuala Lumpur : Malaysian palm oil futures fell in the first half of trade on Friday, easing from a two-week high hit in the previous session, on pressure from a stronger ringgit.

The ringgit, palm´s currency of trade, strengthened 0.12 percent to 4.0350 against the dollar on Friday noon.

A stronger local currency typically makes palm oil more expensive for holders of foreign currencies.

The benchmark palm oil contract for September delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange was down 0.5 percent at 2,332 ringgit ($577.94) a tonne at the midday break, in line to snap two days of gains and is up 2.1 percent so far this week.

Palm, however, is down 4 percent on-month, and has shed 6.8 percent since the start of the year. Trading volumes stood at 14,304 lots of 25 tonnes each at noon.