KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian palm oil futures rose on early Wednesday, recovering from their largest fall in two weeks in the previous session, on buoyant sentiment ahead of the Lunar celebration.
The benchmark palm oil contract for April delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange climbed 0.35 percent to 2,302 ringgit ($560.51) a tonne at the midday break.
Trading volumes stood at 15,404 lots of 25 tonnes each. <1FCPO-TOT>
The futures contract rose to its highest in nearly seven months supported by related edible oil prices on Monday, and charted a sixth session of gains in seven. It then fell 1.4 percent on Tuesday, recording the largest decline in two weeks.
"Market will likely continue to range here in anticipation of the long holiday," a Kuala Lumpur-based trader said.
There is also better demand in the palm oil contracts for February and March delivery, supported by higher pricing in Indonesia, the trader added.
"Stocks in Indonesia seem to have been decreasing since December," he said.
Malaysian markets will be closed on Feb. 5-6 for the Lunar New Year celebrations.
"Traders are also covering positions as there is a lack of sellers at the lower price levels," said another futures trader from Kuala Lumpur.
Palm oil may slide further into a range of 2,256-2,274 ringgit per tonne, following its failure to break a resistance at 2,322 ringgit, Wang Tao, a Reuters market analyst for commodities and energy technicals said.
In other related oils, the Chicago March soybean oil contract was up 0.13 percent.
The May soybean oil contract on the Dalian Commodity Exchange was down 0.41 percent, while the Dalian May palm oil contract fell 0.58 percent.
Palm oil prices are affected by movements in soyoil rates, as they compete for a share in the global vegetable oil market.
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