06/11/2013 (Reuters) - Malaysian palm oil futures ended lower for the first time in six sessions on Monday, weighed down by a slump in crude prices and as traders booked profits after strong gains last week.

By the close, the benchmark January contract on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange ended down 1.9 percent at 2,579 ringgit ($810) per tonne.

Total traded volume stood at 36,025 lots of 25 tonnes each, just above the usual 35,000 lots.

"The market was on the high side," said a trader with a foreign brokerage in Kuala Lumpur. "The retracement is a bit of profit-taking. It is still bullish but factored into prices, and we have negative external factors like crude oil."

The market could find support around 2,570 ringgit, the trader said, adding that investors were also positioning themselves ahead of the Islamic New Year holiday on Tuesday.

Benchmark prices rose 7.5 percent last week, their biggest weekly gain in more than four years, to touch 2,632 ringgit, their highest since Sept. 28, 2012.

Prices were aided last week by lower-than-expected production in Indonesia and Malaysia, due to wet weather and a lower production cycle than last year, traders said.

Technicals showed Malaysian palm oil was expected to retrace to 2,544 ringgit per tonne, as it had failed to break a resistance at 2,630 ringgit, said Reuters market analyst Wang Tao.

"A possible correction," said a Jakarta-based palm trader. "It's like there has been over buying.

"But production is the key factor here ... the production peak never really happened (and) stocks are under control."

In other markets, Brent futures rose as investors bought after the previous session's steep fall, but prices could still be vulnerable to falls amid expectations that the U.S. Federal Reserve will scale back its monetary stimulus.

In competing vegetable oil markets, the U.S. soyoil contract for December rose 0.6 percent in early Asian trade. The most-active May soybean oil contract on the Dalian Commodities Exchange was up 1 percent.

  Palm, soy and crude oil prices at 1009 GMT
                                                                       
  Contract        Month    Last   Change     Low    High  Volume                                                     
  MY PALM OIL      NOV3    2602   -47.00    2600    2633     192                                                     
  MY PALM OIL      DEC3    2589   -46.00    2585    2627    1544                                                     
  MY PALM OIL      JAN4    2579   -49.00    2578    2623   19639                                                     
  CHINA PALM OLEIN MAY4    6318    -2.00    6284    6372  701628                                                     
  CHINA SOYOIL     MAY4    7326   +76.00    7278    7330 1026830                                                     
  CBOT SOY OIL     DEC3   41.84    +0.25   41.51   41.95    5276                                                     
  NYMEX CRUDE      DEC3   94.88    +0.27   94.45   94.92   10472            
                                        
  Palm oil prices in Malaysian ringgit per tonne                                                                     
  CBOT soy oil in U.S. cents per pound                                                                               
  Dalian soy oil and RBD palm olein in Chinese yuan per tonne                                                        
  Crude in U.S. dollars per barrel                                                                                   
  ($1=3.1725 Malaysian ringgit)