Malaysian crude palm oil futures ended up on Tuesday after see-sawing most of the day due to a lack of leads.
The market opened strongly inspired by gains in rival soyaoil and a rally from a day ago.
By the midday break, it fell into negative territory as a major regional trading group which led Monday's rally did not come in to take fresh positions. It, however, rebounded in the afternoon on short covering and finally closed higher. The benchmark third-month palm oil futures on the Malaysia Derivatives Exchange, September, settled eight ringgit up at 1,527 ringgit ($401.84) a tonne, off the day's high of 1,550.
Just before its rebound in the afternoon, it hit an intraday bottom of 1,499. Overall trade volume stood at 6,695 lots, down from Monday's 10,731 lots.
"It was a mixed bag of factors today, with nothing really to push any major buying or selling," said a trader, who expected the September contract to move in the 1,520-1,550 band this week.
Dealers said fundamentally, the market seemed in a better shape for June than previously forecast, due to a slight increase in month-on-month export numbers and drop in stocks of palm oil.
Ivan Wong, the market's main forecaster, put closing stocks of palm oil for June at 1.20-1.21 million tonnes in an estimate released on Monday.
Just a week ago, he had cited a figure of 1.33-1.34 million tonnes for end-June stocks, basing it on seasonal rise in palm oil production. The market's main cargo tracker, Societe Generale de Surveillance, also said on Monday that exports of Malaysian palm oil for June 1-20 stood at 629,233 tonnes, against the 592,272 tonnes for May l-20.
Physical crude palm oil prices also closed up. June/July saw bids/offers at 1,540/1,545 ringgit a tonne in the southern and central regions, against on Monday's close of 1,530/1,535.
Trades closed at 1,530-1,540 ringgit in both regions.
PALM OIL FUTURES:
June (south): 1545.
Open/High/Low: 1533/1550/1499.
Previous closes: 1535.
PALM OIL PHYSICALS:
September (3rd month): 1527.
Previous settlement: 1519.
FUTURES:
Benchmark third-month September up eight ringgit to 1,527 ringgit ($401.84) a tonne.
PHYSICALS: Also up.