The Hindu Business Line : Spot rubber sluggish despite bullish global market

Kottayam, Oct. 23 The domestic rubber prices remained sluggish though the fundamentals were unchanged and the global indices bullish. The lorry strike took the steam out of market on its fifth day on Tuesday. In spot, sheet rubber RSS 4 closed steady at Rs 99 a kg at Kottayam, while it declined to Rs 98.50 from Rs 99.50 a kg at Kochi. The remaining grades except latex fell as there were no buyers in the market due to the difficulties in transportation.

Futures weak

The rubber futures continued to rule weak in both commodity exchanges. The November contract slipped to Rs 98.33 (99.18) a kg on MCX. On NMCE, the November contract moved down further to Rs 98.05 (99.45), December to Rs 98.55 (100.43), January to Rs 99.25 (101.14) and February to Rs 100.70 (102.54) per kg for RSS 4. The volumes were 2,043 (2,419) tonnes, while the open interest stood at 4,156 (4,243) tonnes. The outstanding positions were recorded as 1,511 (1,615) lots in November, 1,382 (1,370) lots in December, 823 (852) lots in January and 440 (406) lots in February on NMCE. The November futures for RSS 3 bounced back to 271.3 (Rs 94.07) yen from 267.3 yen a kg at TOCOM.

Spot prices were (Rs/kg): RSS-4: 99 (99); RSS-5: 97 (97.50); ungraded: 94 (94.50); ISNR 20: 95.50 (96) and latex 60 per cent: 63.50 (63.50).