The Hindu Business Line : Spot rubber gains on raw material shortage

Kottayam, Aug. 7 Physical rubber prices improved further on Tuesday. The market suffered from acute shortage of raw material due to gap in demand and supply. The futures market appeared to be supportive to the current bullishness.

Sheet rubber finished higher at Rs 93 from Rs 91 and Rs 92 a kg, respectively at Kottayam and Kochi as covering groups turned aggressive but the transactions were thin.

The rubber futures ruled firm for August contracts but turned weak for far months on NMCE. The August contract was better at Rs 94.70 (93.41) while the September contract weakened to Rs 87.60 (88.11), October Rs 84.45 (85.34) and November to Rs 82.95 (83.88) per kg for RSS 4. The transactions totalled 4,904 (4,789) lots.

The open interest was 6,376 (6,522) lots with 1,999 (2,301) lots in August, 2,664 (2,520) in September, 1,250 (1,256) in October and 463 (445) in November.

The August delivery contract moved up to Rs 92.82 from Rs 91.22 a kg trading 222 lots on MCX.

RSS 3 weakened further at its September futures to 255.3 yen (Rs 86.83) a kg against 257.2 yen a kg at TOCOM. The grade moved down to Rs 88.73 from Rs 89.47 a kg at Bangkok.

Spot prices (in Rs/kg) were: RSS-4: 93 (91); RSS-5: 90 (88); ungraded: 88 (87); ISNR 20: 90 (88); and latex 60%: 61.05 (60).