23/01/2018 (The Star Online) - KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian palm oil futures ended a four-session decline with a more than 1 percent gain on Monday evening, rising on the back of bullish sentiment at an industry conference held in Karachi this week.

The benchmark palm oil contract for April delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange was up 1.2 percent at 2,475 ringgit ($629.29) a tonne at the end of the trading day, its sharpest daily gain in more than two weeks.

Trading volumes stood at 31,893 lots of 25 tonnes each by the close.

"Market support is coming in after the conference was held, with industry analysts expecting prices to go up before coming down again," said a Kuala Lumpur-based trader, referring to the Pakistan Edible Oil Conference in Karachi on Saturday.

Malaysian palm oil prices could rise to 2,700 ringgit a tonne in the first quarter of the year because production is expected to decline on a seasonal basis, said two leading industry analysts at the conference.

The seasonal trend will stoke a rise in production levels and is expected to pull down prices after the first quarter.

 Another trader said that gains in related edible oils also gave some support to palm. The oilseed tracks the performance of oils competing for a share in the global market.

The March soybean oil contract on the Chicago Board of Trade rose as much as 0.4 percent, while May soybean oil on the Dalian Commodity Exchange gained up to 0.8 percent.

 The Dalian May palm oil contract gained up to 0.3 percent.

Palm oil could find support at 2,426 ringgit a tonne and then either hover above this level or bounce towards a range of 2,462-2,491 ringgit, said Wang Tao, a Reuters market analyst for

commodities and energy technicals. – Reuters