JAKARTA, Jan 18: Malaysian crude palm oil futures were mixed in choppy trading on Thursday as players awaited clearer leads from a string of palm oil data next week, dealers said.

The benchmark third-month April contract on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives exchange was up 2 ringgit at 1,905 ringgit a ton ($544) after trading between 1,881 ringgit and 1,915 ringgit.

The direction is not clear. So they are better off not doing anything. It's a directionless market, a Malaysian dealer in Kuala Lumpur said.

Other traded contracts were either up 2 ringgit or down between one and 7 ringgit. Overall volume was 15,405 lots of 25 tons.

They are waiting for the next 20 days export data next week. They want to know how bad exports are after a bad production period, said another dealer in Kuala Lumpur.

The market could move in a wide range for the week with immediate resistance at 1,950 ringgit and support at 1,880, dealers said. But concerns that wet weather would hit supplies still lent support to the market.—Reuters