Trader's Comment: Palm oil futures ended below 2000 level on weak export rumors.

Palm oil futures ended below 2000 level on weak export rumors. The weakness shown in eCBOT soy oil and Dalian palm during the early trading had given traders an excuse to book their overnight profit. This led Benchmark Jun09 to open RM25 lower at 2002. It was initially well supported as it immediately bounced to intra day high of 2028 and closed at 2021 before lunch. However, market talk that export figures which will be released tomorrow may decline to around 875k tonnes level (ITS put 1-20Feb export at 1,000,678 tonnes) had triggered some aggressive selling activities after second session resumed. Benchmark Jun09 slid to intra day low of 1978 before it finally settled RM50 lower at 1980.