The New York Board of Trade's (NYBOT) active March cocoa contract gained $24 to settle at $1,469 a tonne, after trading from $1,437 to $1,475.
May cocoa likewise advanced $24 to end at $1,491 a tonne, while back-month contracts climbed $23 to $25. "The market just ran up off of the day's lows on spec buying," said a trader, pointing out that the momentum had prompted some speculators to cover their short positions. "But the volume was light there was no real size," he added.
Indeed, cocoa futures turnover reached an estimated 4,000 lots, down from the relatively light 4,233 contracts the previous session. In London, the Life's benchmark March contract ended at 895 pounds a tonne, up 0.6 percent from Friday.
London markets were closed on Monday and Tuesday for holidays.
Meanwhile, Ivory Coast's newly installed prime minister, Charles Konan Banny, will name his Cabinet later on Wednesday, allowing him to tackle reforms aimed at guiding the world's No 1 cocoa producing country to elections next year.
Banny is set to have an expanded mandate under a UN-backed peace plan giving him powers to carry out disarmament and electoral reforms with the aim of organising presidential elections by the end of October next year.
The same UN plan allows Ivories President Laurent Gbagbo to remain in office beyond the October 30 end of his five-year mandate until the polls are held in Ivory Coast, divided between a rebel-controlled north and government-held south.
Previous outbreaks of violence in the West African country had delayed cocoa bean deliveries, causing cocoa futures prices to spike.