Trader's Comment: Palm oil futures surrendered its earlier gains on weaker export figures.

Palm oil futures surrendered its earlier gains on weaker export figures. Benchmark May09 fell to 1971 after it opened almost unchanged, following the release of export data last Saturday by private cargo surveyor, ITS which reported a decline of nearly 12%. Initially it was still well supported as it rebounded again to a new recent high at 2017 before trading on BMD halted by midday on technical problem. Nevertheless, market sentiment in the afternoon session immediately changed when another private cargo surveyor SGS released its export data which also reported a lower by 13%. Benchmark May09 was unable to hold and immediately fell to the low of 1932. It then bounced back to hover between 1948-1968, before another wave of late selling activity emerged which hammered the prices down to 1920 and settled RM72 lower at 1922. There was no trading in eCBOT today as US markets are closed on Monday for the President’s Day.