Palm | Kelapa Sawit

Pre-weekend covering and technical play led CPO futures to end generally higher. Technical players were buying and locking at the gap between 2180 to 2240 which left over on 16th Sept 08 to be filled. Sentiment also changed from neutral to supportive after yesterday's strong performance. Market just needed some correction since the slump in this week was a bit too sharp. It dived from early of the week high at 2341 to 2020 yesterday. Steady NYMEX crude oil prices trading in Asian time zone also provided some speculative buying element. Earlier, prices were trading in negative territory due to market talks that 1-20 Sept08 export will be lower by 8% down from same period in August08's figures at 904,645 tonnes (ITS). However, market was rather steady in the afternoon session trading steady crude oil also some commercial buying interest at the underlying cash market. Late aggressive covering activities push prices to cover technical gap and hit intra-day high at 2263 before it settled RM74 higher at 2259.