This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 17th, 2010 at 8:42 pm and is filed under Rubber News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Rubber climbed to one-week high, tracking gains in crude oil, on expectations that China, the world’s biggest buyer, will sustain purchases.
January-delivery rubber in Tokyo added as much as 1.3 percent to 283.50 yen a kilogram ($3,323 per metric ton) on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange before settling at 281.8 yen. Prices fell 0.5 percent last week, the first drop in four weeks.
“A rally on the Shanghai market spilled over to Tokyo,” said Chaiwat Muenmee, an analyst at Bangkok-based DS Futures Co. Floods in China may have hurt plantations, spurring speculation the country will increase imports of the commodity used to make tires and gloves, he said.
January-delivery rubber in Shanghai gained as much as 2.4 percent to 25,335 yuan ($3,728) per ton, before closing at 25,310 a ton.
Crude oil added as much as 0.7 percent to $75.74 a barrel, improving the competitiveness of natural rubber against rival synthetic material made from petroleum.
“The market was supported by strong demand from Chinese and Indian rubber markers,” said Katsumi Kinoshita, senior manager for Institutional Department of Orion Koeki Co.
China’s auto sales may rise to 16 million this year, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said on Aug. 10, boosting its forecast from a previous estimate of 15 million. China’s passenger-car sales rose 13.6 percent to 946,200 in July, the association said.
India’s passenger car sales in July surged 38 percent to a record of 158,764 vehicles as economic growth and new models from Ford Motor Co. and Volkswagen AG boosted demand, the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers said in a statement on Aug. 9. That’s the highest monthly total the association has recorded, said Vishnu Mathur, director general of the grouping.
Stockpiles Increase
“Increase in rubber stockpiles in China and Japan also provided hopes that purchases of rubber will continue to meet increasing demand for tire production,” Varut Rungkhum, an analyst at Agro Wealth Ltd., said today by phone from Bangkok. “Stockpile replenishing will continue to support rubber prices,” he said.
Natural rubber inventories in China expanded for a third week by 1,667 tons to 21,875 tons, based on a survey of 10 warehouses in Shanghai, Shandong, Yunnan, Hainan and Tianjin, the Shanghai Futures Exchange said Aug. 13. That was 86 percent lower than this year high of 151,832 tons reached on Jan. 21, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Rubber stockpiles held at Japanese warehouses rose 3.7 percent to 3,396 tons on Aug. 10, according to data from the Rubber Trade Association of Japan.
Source: Bloomberg