The Hindu Business Line : Mixed trend in spot rubber

Kottayam, Dec. 13 Rubber rates showed a mixed mood on Thursday. The sentiments were ridden by a firm close in international indices following an improvement in crude oil prices. RSS 3 closed at Rs 97.51 from Rs 96.69 a kg at Bangkok. The January futures for the grade rose to ¥276.5 (Rs 97.49) from ¥272.7 a kg at TOCOM. RSS 4 finished better by 50 paise at Rs 91.50 at Kottayam on scattered transactions pursuing the global gains while the grade closed flat at Rs 91 a kg at Kochi shedding the early gains on late trading. Major manufacturers continued to stick on to their lower quotes restricting the market movements to a narrow range. The trend was mixed.

On NMCE, the last traded price (LTP) for the December contract was quoted at Rs 93.25 (Rs 93.03), January at Rs 93.75 (Rs 94.34), February at Rs 95.03 (Rs 95.96) and March at Rs 96.85 (Rs 97.73) per kg for RSS 4. The volumes totalled 1,627 (1,352) lots. The market ruled better till mid session but lost ground towards close on selling at higher levels.

The open interest was 7,132 (7,315) lots with 670 (1,147) lots in December, 3,125 (3,049) lots in January, 2,495 (2,341) lots in February and 842 (778) lots in March. The January futures slipped to Rs 93.92 from Rs 94.44 a kg on MCX.

Spot prices were (per kg) RSS-4: Rs 91.50 (Rs 91); RSS-5: Rs 88 (Rs 87.50); ungraded: Rs 86 (Rs 85.50); ISNR 20: Rs 87 (Rs 87) and latex 60 per cent: Rs 60.50 (Rs 60.50).