The Hindu Business Line : Spot rubber prices improve

Kottayam, Aug. 9 The physical rubber rates improved on Thursday. According to market circles, the fundamentals remained unchanged as there had been no improvement in the availability of rubber and hence the prices recovered in tune with the domestic and global futures.

Sheet rubber moved up to Rs 93 and Rs 93.50 a kg respectively at Kottayam and Kochi from Rs 92.50 a kg on brisk trading. The volumes were low.

Futures better

The rubber futures showed a better trend with the August contract for RSS 4 rising to Rs 94.50 a kg against Rs 91.36 a kg on MCX. The August contract for the grade finished better at Rs 94.30 (93.67), September at Rs 86.80 (86.45), October at Rs 83.84 (83.25) and November at Rs 82.45 (81.92) per kg on NMCE. The open interest on NMCE was quoted at 6,445 (6,237) lots with 1,797 (1,889) lots in August, 2,877 (2,614) lots in September, 1,274 (1,247) lots in October and 497 (487) lots in November.

The transactions stood at 2,892 (2,910) tonnes. The September futures for RSS 3 improved to 255.1 Yen (Rs 86.68) a kg against 253.7 Yen a kg at TOCOM. But the grade (spot) weakened to Rs 87.25 from Rs 87.63 a kg at Bangkok.

Spot prices were (Rs/kg): RSS-4: 93 (92.50); RSS-5: 90 (88.50); ungraded: 87 (86.50); ISNR 20: 89.50 (88.50) and latex 60 per cent: 61.05 (61.05).