Pepper spot and futures continued its northward run on Thursday, on reports of fall in global output and rise in world consumption without a corresponding growth in production, pushing the prices of future contracts and spot pepper up further.

However, market moved up only in the afternoon on reports of firmer markets overseas. The drop in prices was attributed to the sharp fall in the stock market as the brokers might have sold some of their positions in the commodities market for margin money, the trade said. It was highly volatile and opened with the highest price of the day and declined and at one point of time the difference between the Oct and Nov contracts were identical at Rs 655 a quintal, and then moved up and closed above the previous day close, market sources told Business Line . Indian pepper MG 1 was the cheapest in the world market now at $8,050 a tonne (c&f), they claimed. Exporters were covering even lower grades of 500 GL, 520 GL, 535 GL and 550 GL apart from good quality high range pepper at prices ranging from Rs 334-340 a kg, they said.

Good buying activities were on the spot with an estimated 125 tonnes were traded in different directions, they said. All these factors pushed the spot prices to the highest ever levels in its history.

Oct contract moved up Rs 115 to close at Rs 37,100 a quintal. Nov and Dec increased Rs 120 and Rs 165 respectively to close at Rs 37,685 and Rs 18,195. Total turnover increased 1,029 tonnes to 8,450 t. Total open interest moved up 415 t to 12,465 t.

Oct open interest moved up 87 t to close at 10,362 t while that of Nov went up 317 t and 7 t respectively to 1,644 t and 358 t. Spot prices went up Rs 100 to close at Rs 33,400 (ungarbled) and Rs 34,900 (MG 1), the highest ever price in its trading history, market sources said.

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