The Hindu Business Line : Covering buys keep spot rubber steady

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Kottayam March 1 Spot rubber closed unchanged on Thursday. The market lacked the strength to move up since there were no quantity buyers in the main marketing centres. But some covering purchases helped the market to sustain at current levels though the international markets were bearish.

Sheet rubber finished flat at Rs 94.50 a kg both at Kottayam and Kochi as on Wednesday. There was no fresh demand from the tyre sector or other consuming industries, sources said.

Futures improve

The rubber futures improved on fresh buying coupled with short covering at lower levels. On NMCE, the March contract firmed up to Rs 94.50 (93.49), April to Rs 100 (98.38), May to Rs 105.17 (103.57) and June to Rs 108.25 (107.21) a kg for RSS 4.

The transactions were 3,363 (4,076) tonnes and the open interest 17,111 (16,597) tonnes. The most active March contract moved up to Rs 93.48 from Rs 92.19 a kg on MCX.

The March futures for RSS 3 fell further to 254.8 Yen (Rs 95.45) a kg from 260.2 Yen at TOCOM as Yen continued to rule strong against dollar. RSS 3 (spot) lost 26 paise to close at Rs 105.20 against Rs 105.46 a kg at Bangkok.

Spot rubber prices were (Rs/kg): RSS-4: 94.50 (94.50); RSS-5: 92 (92); ungraded: 91 (91); ISNR 20: 90.50 (90.50) and latex 60 per cent: 63.15 (63.15).