Palm oil on the European vegetable oils market firmed on Friday in positioning ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, but ended well off the day's highs.
Asking prices for palm oil were between unchanged and $10 a tonne up from Thursday after Malaysian palm oil futures closed a half day session between 13 and 21 ringgit per tonne lower. Output is seen rising next month and traders booked profit before the long weekend.
"A weaker dollar pushed dollar-priced products up a little and the cash market took a few dollars protection ahead of the long holiday weekend in Asia," one broker said.
At 1730 GMT CBOT soyaoil futures were between 0.16 and 0.35 cents per lb lower on technical selling as Chicago traders bought soyameal contracts and sold soyaoil futures. A drop in energy markets also weighed.
EU rapeoil also dipped on technical selling in a market that has been strong for some time. Weaker CBOT soyaoil and slightly lower rapeseed futures also weighed on rapeoil.
Lauric oils had few sellers and hardly any buyers before the holiday. Asking prices were quoted between $5 a tonne down and $25 a tonne up from Thursday.