Trader's Comment: Palm oil futures retreated from yesterday’s rebound on pre-weekend profit taking.

Palm oil futures retreated from yesterday’s rebound on pre-weekend profit taking. Traders had been selling aggressively whenever prices approaching 2350 level to book their previous profit and also some speculative selling. Benchmark immediately fell to the morning low of 2306 after opened almost unchanged at 2340. Prices went up to intra day high of 2349 after second session resumed but was unable to hold and saw speculative selling interest emerged until it hit intra day low at 2296. However, some late intra day short covering activities led Benchmark Sep09 to bounce back slightly and settled RM19 lower at 2317. The bullish external markets had lent some support to the local CPO market. Asian time NYMEX crude oil extended its overnight strong gains and traded above $71 level, while Dalian palm and eCBOT soy oil edged more than 1% higher.