The Hindu Business Line : Marginal decline in pepper futures

Pepper futures witnessed marginal decline on Thursday despite fundamentals remaining unchanged. Speculative selling is pointed out as the reason for the downward trend.

Domestic demand has picked up. But there was no selling pressure in spot pepper.

Enquiries from overseas markets for MG 1 started trickling in. Overseas buyers seem to have realised now that there is really a shortfall, market observers told Business Line.

Indian parity is at $2,825 a tonne (c&f). But there are buyers at $2,700-2,725.As the difference was not wide, business can take place in the coming days, they said.

Meanwhile, conflicting reports emanated from Vietnam on the prices.

Some were quoting at $2,600 while others quoted at $2,765.

On NCDEX, the January contract moved up by Rs 9 a quintal to Rs 11,141.

All other positions except July dropped by Rs 23-55 a quintal, while July improved by Rs 8 a quintal.

On NMCE, January fell by Rs 31 a quintal to close at Rs 11,300, while all other positions dropped by Rs 9-90 a quintal.

Total turnover on NCDEX fell by 2,944 tonnes to 10,145 tonnes, while on NMCE it dropped by 891 tonnes to 1,728 tonnes.

Open interest

The total open interest on the NCDEX fell by 207 tonnes to 23,620 tonnes, while on the NMCE it was up by 10 tonnes to 4,007 tonnes.

Open interest for January and February on NCDEX dropped by 153 tonnes and 210 tonnes respectively. March position on NMCE was up by 11 tonnes to 3,670 tonnes.

Spot prices continued to rule steady at Rs 10,600 (un-garbled) and Rs 11,200 (MG 1) a quintal on Thursday.