Trader's Comment: Lower inventory released by MPOB led CPO futures to finish generally higher

Lower inventory released by MPOB led CPO futures to finish generally higher. Players were discounting lower 1-10 Jan09 export figures released by private cargo surveyors. MPOB put palm oil stocks in December08 fall 11.98% to 1.99 million tonnes from a revised 2.26 million tonnes in November08. This provided some confidence to the bull as end-stocks below 2million. Private cargo surveyors released their 1-10 Jan09 export figures were more or less within market expectation and ignored by market players, SGS pegged 1-10 Jan09 export down 37% at 384,842 from Dec08 at 619,180 tonnes. Last Friday’s strong closed at soy complex in CBOT provided a positive tone to BMD a good start in the early session. Benchmark Mar09 finally settled RM68 higher at 1988 after trading between 1935 to 1988.