November 04, 2006	Saturday	Shawwal 11, 1427

BANGKOK, Nov 3: Malaysian crude palm oil futures fell on Friday because of profit-taking, dealers said.

The benchmark January contract contract on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives exchange ended down 31 ringgit at 1,693 ringgit a ton ($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 Thursday's 24,681 lots of 25 tons each.

The market fell from profit taking, a Malaysian dealer in Kuala Lumpur said. “Today is 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.

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 Friday.

Cargo surveyors are also due to release Nov.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, soybean and soyaoil tonight first, a dealer said.

Soyaoil and palm oil compete for exports and their prices often move in step.—Reuters