London cocoa futures built on the previous session's gains on Wednesday amid speculative buying and talk about a possible cut to Ghana's harvest estimate, traders said.
Most-active December closed at 950 pounds a tonne, up 16 pounds and near the bottom of the day's 974-945 range.
"There's some renewed speculative buying and generalised profit-taking," one dealer said, also noting a lack of origin interest.
Traders said talk Ghana's 2003/04 crop might fall slightly below expectations also spurred gains. From a technical point of view the market seemed to have reversed the downward trend seen last week, traders said.
But liquidity was low and there was a dearth of fundamental news.
Volume on December was 4,721 lots from a session total of 8,270 after switch activity helped pad out turnover, floor sources said.
Players were still following weather conditions in Ivory Coast to see if rainfall in August would compensate for unusually dry weather in June and July.