Malaysian palm oil futures ended Friday's trade in negative territory, dragged down by weaker soyaoil on the Chicago Board of Trade and traders taking profits ahead of export data due on Monday. The benchmark palm oil contract for July delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange closed 0.79 percent down at 2,651 ringgit ($610.27) a tonne breaking a five-session run of gains.
That streak helped the contract to a weekly gain of 2.83 percent.
Traded volumes on Friday stood at 40,478 lots of 25 tonnes each at noon.
"The market is seeing a retracement after five days up, awaiting further developments," said one Kuala Lumpur-based futures trader, adding that lacklustre soyaoil on the Chicago Board of Trade weighed on palm prices.
"Market sentiment, however, remains supportive. We are moving towards Ramazan and the Muslim festival month; therefore demand and exports remain strong and production will be slightly higher."
The fasting month of Ramazan, which begins at the end of May this year, historically leads to higher usage of palm oil for cooking in regions such as India and the Middle East.
Data from the Malaysian Palm Oil Board showed that April exports rose 1.4 percent month on month to 1.28 million tonnes, while output was up 5.7 percent at 1.55 million tonnes.
The data also showed end-April inventories rising 3 percent month on month at 1.6 million tonnes.
Palm oil faces resistance at 2,674 ringgit a tonne, a break above which could lead to a gain to the next resistance level at 2,727 ringgit, according to a Reuters market analyst for commodities and energy technicals.
Cargo surveyors Intertek Testing Services and Societe Generale de Surveillance are scheduled to release Malaysian export data for the first half of May on Monday.
In related vegetable oils, soyabean oil on the Chicago Board of Trade was down 0.62 percent, while the September soyabean oil contract on the Dalian Commodity Exchange rose by 0.88 percent.
The September contract for palm olein was up 1.44 percent.
Palm prices are affected by movements of its rival oilseed soya, competing in the global vegetable oils market.