Trader's Comment: Palm oil futures extended its rally to hit 2300 mark on the back of supportive official March09 supply/demand data.

Palm oil futures extended its rally to hit 2300 mark on the back of supportive official March09 supply/demand data. Benchmark Jun09 initially encountered some selling pressure from profit taking activities that emerged in the early trading. It slid to intra day low of 2240 after opened almost unchanged at 2270. However, the released of MPOB supply/demand data during lunch break saw CPO prices to bounce back again when second session resumed trading. The data had shown that March end stock level fell 12.9% to 1.36 million tonnes (20-month low), which was lower than expectation of 1.40 million tonnes. The effect of lower stock level had offset the 7% increase in production. Benchmark Jun09 surged to intra day high of 2302 in late second session and finally ended RM30 higher at 2299. Both private cargo surveyors also showed good results on the first 10 days of April export data, as ITS and SGS reported an increase of 8% and 3% respectively.