KUALA LUMPUR (Mar 10): Malaysian palm oil futures edged down on Tuesday, stretching its losing streak into a fifth day as disappointing exports for the first ten days of March, alongside losses in crude and soy markets, piled pressure onto the benchmark contract.

Cargo surveyor Intertek Testing Services showed that Malaysian palm oil shipments for March 1-10 fell 12.3 percent to 262,168 tonnes compared with the similar period a month ago, as
Europe and China slashed imports of the tropical oil.

"During the Palm Oil Conference everyone was talking about good exports in March, but this is disappointing," said a trader with a foreign commodities firm in Kuala Lumpur.

"The pressure is definitely coming from exports...26,000 tonnes a day is very, very low."    

By the midday break, the benchmark May contract on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange had edged down 0.6 percent to 2,257 ringgit ($611) a tonne, marking a fifth day of losses.

Total traded volume stood at 22,063 lots of 25 tonnes, nearly double the usual 12,500 lots.

Traders, however, kept away from risky bets in the morning session ahead of key data on stocks and output in Malaysia, the world's No.2 grower and exporter.

"We are closing in on the 2,250 ringgit support level," the Kuala Lumpur-based trader added. "At this level, unless we have something more concrete to go by, people won't usually try to
break it, unless supply and demand fundamentals are weak."

Malaysian Palm Oil Board data, released after the midday break, showed that Malaysian palm oil stocks hit a seven-month low of 1.74 million tonnes at the end of February, above trade
estimates for stocks to fall to 1.67 million tonnes.

Exports for the month, however, plunged to their weakest in nearly eight years, the MPOB said.  
    
Palm gained little respite from the slide in the ringgit against the U.S. dollar, which scored near 12-year highs on Tuesday to mount pressure onto most emerging Asian currencies.

A weaker ringgit, which was forced down to a March 2009 low of 3.6970 on Tuesday, typically makes the ringgit-priced feedstock cheaper for overseas buyers. But the dollar's strength
also hurt oil prices, which in turn weighed on palm.

Brent crude gave up most of its early gains and steadied above $58.50 a barrel on Tuesday, supported by data showing annual consumer inflation in top energy consumer China recovered
last month while a firmer dollar kept a lid on prices.   

In vegetable oil markets, the most active May soybean oil contract on the Dalian Commodity Exchange fell 0.6 percent in early Asian trade. The U.S. soyoil contract for May dropped 0.1 percent.