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TOKYO, March 13 (Reuters) – Tokyo rubber futures rose on Friday as a rally in equities and oil markets eased concerns about demand.
* Futures prices have been caught in a range between 125 and 145 yen recently as global automakers slash production, resulting in slackening tyre demand, while producers have resisted cutting prices below $1.35 per tonne as agreed late last year.
* The key Tokyo Commodity Exchange rubber contract for August delivery <0#JRU:> ended at 136.5 yen per kg, up 3 yen or 2.2 percent from the previous close. Futures rose as high as 141.2 yen, up nearly 6 percent.
* Oil fell but stayed above $46 a barrel ahead of a weekend OPEC meeting and a more than 11 percent jumped the previous day, helped by better-than-expected U.S. February retail sales data. [O/R]
* “Speculative activity could test either the upside or downside of the recent price range. The driver will be technical charts, not fundamentals,” said a manager at a Tokyo trading firm.
* The world’s top three rubber producing countries, which have agreed to reduce exports this year, are set to meet the Chinese rubber association on March 17 in Guangzhou, China, to look for ways to cooperate to stabilise prices and avoid defaults. [ID:nBKK441546]
* But traders said expectations for the meeting were low as Indonesia, the No.2 producer, failed to meet the top three rubber producers’ agreement late last year not to sell rubber below $1.35 per kg, or $0.60-0.61 per pound.
* Tokyo’s Nikkei share average <.N225> jumped more than 5 percent on Friday following the lead of Wall Street, which rose thanks to stabilising retail sales and after Bank of America reported a return to profit. [.T]
* The euro and the dollar held on to strong gains against the Swiss franc on Friday, after the Swiss National Bank said it was intervening in the foreign exchange market in the face of a growing risk of deflation. [USD/]
* In the physical market, prices were mostly unchanged on Friday as activity slowed after buying by China, the world’s biggest consumer, petered out.
Source: Reuters