Performance and Key Highlights of Bursa Malaysia Derivatives (BMD) Products in Q1 2021

1) Global COVID-19 Vaccine Immunisation Program

• COVID-19 cases continued to haunt the global environment in early of 2021 where the number of cases has reached 130 million marks with 2.8 million deaths.
• Despite the continuous surging of COVID-19 cases globally, the prospect of returning to normal condition is revived in the first 3 months of the year as most of the countries around the world are aggressively rolling out their own vaccination programs.
• Based on data from BBC news, more than 677 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in 151 countries worldwide with countries like United States and China have administered the most with 167 million and 143 million respectively.
• According to the data, the Oxford-AstraZeneca is now the most widely used vaccine around the world, with Pfizer-BioNtech rank in the second highest of usage.

2)The Inauguration of New President of United States

• Following the victory in the last election in 2020, the new President of United States took the oath in the formal inauguration ceremony that took place on 20 January 2021.
• The ceremony marked the official appointment of Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States.
• Two weeks earlier, a protest happened in the Capitol where a large group of pro-Trump protesters tried to breach the building.

3) US COVID-19 Relief Package

• On 11th March 2021, President Joe Biden signed the USD1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package which marked his first duty as the President of United States.
• The package known as the American Rescue Plan consists special assistance in expanding health care system, extending unemployment benefits and reopening the schools for children.

1) Reinstatement of Movement Control Order

• Following the rising infections nationwide to 4 digit cases, Malaysian government had decided to reinstate the Movement Control Order in 5 states namely Melaka, Johor, Penang, Selangor and Sabah from 13 January to 26 January 2021.
• Under the MCO condition, all the social gatherings are banned and dine-ins are forbidden, while people can only travel within 10km radius from home.
• However, as the situation did not get any better, the MCO was extended twice to the whole country from 27 February to 4 February and from 5 February to 4 March 2021.
• Effective 5 March 2021, the government has announced that MCO was officially phased out to be replaced with Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO) and Recovery Movement Control Order (RMCO).

2) COVID-19 National Immunisation Programme

• In line with global peers, Malaysia has also launched its own National Immunisation Program (NIP) where the first batch of COVID-19 vaccines arrived on 21 February 2021.
• The program will be conducted in three phases where the first phase will be targeted to all the front liners until April 2021 while the second phase will only commence in April for senior citizens and individual with critical illnesses.
• The vaccines will only available to general public in third phase expected to begin around May 2021.
• Under the program, Malaysia hopes to achieve herd immunity against COVID-19 once it has inoculated 80% of total country’s population by February 2022.

3) Emergency Proclamation in Malaysia

• Due to the continuous rising of COVID-19 cases in Malaysia, the country’s King Al-Sultan Abdullah had declared a state of emergency across the country to curb the spread of the infection.
• Under the emergency declaration, which will last until 1 August 2021, Malaysia will remain open for business and economic activity, but the parliament and state legislative assemblies will not convene.
• General, state and by elections are also not allowed under this period, and the authority to make new laws called ordinances rests with the King if he is satisfied that there are certain circumstances which make it necessary for him to take “immediate action”.

4) Special Assistance Package 2021

• In complement with the four economic stimulus package announced in 2020, Malaysia government had introduced its fifth stimulus package known Perlindungan Ekonomi dan Rakyat Malaysia or better known as PERMAI.
• PERMAI, which is valued at RM15 billion, consists three main objectives, namely combating the COVID-19 outbreak, safeguarding the people’s welfare and supporting the business continuity.

No of Trading Days

Q1 2021 : 60

Q4 2020 : 64

Q1 2020 : 64

QoQ Performance

YoY Performance

No of Trading Days

Q1 2021 : 60

Q4 2020 : 64

Q1 2020 : 64

QoQ Performance

YoY Performance

Snapshot of FCPO Performance

Price as at 31/03/2021 (Last trading day): 3,612

Quarter High: 4,138 (15/03/2021)

Quarter Low: 3,221 (20/01/2021)

Q1 2021 Performance (% Change): +0.33

No of Trading Days

Q1 2021 : 60

Q4 2020 : 64

Q1 2020 : 64

QoQ Performance

YoY Performance

Snapshot of FKLI Performance

Price as at 31/03/2021 (Last trading day): 1,568.5

Quarter High: 1,637 (14/01/2021)

Quarter Low: 1,564 (02/03/2021)

Q1 2021 Performance (% Change): -3.86

Bursa Malaysia Derivatives to revamp Crude Palm Kernel Oil futures (FPKO) contract

• On 5th March 2021, Bursa Malaysia Derivatives (BMD) has decided to revamp FPKO contract to meet the evolving industry needs.
• According to the statement made by BMD, the improvements to the contract have been applied across five main areas mainly contract grade, delivery points, daily price limits, speculative position limits and imposition of traceability document requirements.

Virtual Palm and Lauric Oils Price Outlook Conference and Exhibition 2021

• Bursa Malaysia Derivatives (BMD) had organised its annual event of Virtual Palm and Lauric Oils Price Outlook Conference or better known as Virtual POC2021 on 23 and 24 March 2021.
• Just like 2020, this year Virtual POC2021 was hosted in digital platform where all the industry participants able to meet and exchange ideas while collecting some information on CPO price outlook and trends.
• In the event, most of the analysts expected the spot and futures contract of CPO to decline this year mainly due to a recovery in supply.
• A well known commodity analyst, Thomas Mielke expected the CPO prices to start declining in the Q2 2021, while another analyst, James Fry forecasted FCPO to trade at RM3,300 per tonne by end of 2021.
• Another analyst, Dorab Mistry, expected the third month FCPO to hold the price of RM 3,300 level until June before it bottom out at RM2,700 level from July onwards.