Malaysian crude palm oil futures fell on Friday because of profit taking, dealers said. The benchmark January contract on the Bursar Malaysia Derivatives exchange ended down 31 ringgit at 1,693 ringgit a tonne ($464.4) after trading in a wide range between 1,683 and 1,720 ringgit.
Other traded contracts were down 21 to 38 ringgit. Overall volume was 13,944 lots against on Thursday's 24,681 lots of 25 tonnes each. "The market fell from profit taking," a Malaysian dealer in Kuala Lumpur said. "Today on Friday, toward the weekend, and it was a purely profit taking day for palm oil."
Malaysian dealers said they expected the market to move in a range of 1,680 ringgit and 1,740 ringgit on Monday. "Monday will be a new day. There is no news to move the market at the moment," one dealer said.
"We are looking into the next week's MPOB report and the first ten days of November's exports," another dealer said, referring to the state-run Malaysian Palm Oil Board which is due to release stocks and output figures next on Friday.
Cargo surveyors are also due to release November 1-10 palm oil export data on the same day. "But it is still a long way to go. So we are going to be looking into overseas markets, soyabean and soyaoil tonight first," a dealer said. Soyaoil and palm oil compete for exports and their prices often move in step.