This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 at 7:05 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.
July 14 (Bloomberg) — Natural rubber futures in Tokyo advanced for the first time in three days as crude oil rebounded and equities in the U.S. and Asia rallied, raising speculation that demand will gain for the commodity used to make tires.
Crude oil rose as much as 1.3 percent, increasing the cost of making the rival synthetic rubber. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index gained as much as 2.3 percent after the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rallied 2.5 percent yesterday, boosting investor sentiment toward commodities.
“A rally in crude oil prices pushed rubber futures higher, together with gains in the global stock markets,” said Hiroyuki Kikukawa, general manager of research at IDO Securities Co. The yen’s decline against the dollar also helped boost the value of the Japanese currency-based commodity futures in Tokyo, he said.
Rubber for December added as much as 4 yen, or 2.6 percent, to 157 yen a kilogram ($1,683 a ton) on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange and closed at 156.8 yen. The price has gained 15 percent this year after slumping 56 percent in 2008 amid the global recession.
Crude oil rose as high as $60.47 a barrel before trading at $60.35. The dollar rose as high as 93.33 yen before trading at 93.19 yen by 3:31 p.m. Tokyo time.
Shippers in Thailand, the world’s top rubber exporter, increased offers for RSS-3 grade rubber for August shipment to $1.65 a kilogram today from $1.64 yesterday, according to Takaki Shigemoto, an analyst at broker Okachi & Co.
A rise in China’s car sales has provided support to the rubber market, Kikukawa said.
China’s sales of cars, sport-utility vehicles and other passenger vehicles surged 48 percent to 872,900 last month, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said July 9. That helped to make the Asian nation the world’s largest auto market this year, with 27 percent more first-half sales than the U.S.
Rubber for November delivery on the Shanghai Futures Exchange, the most-active contract, rose 1.2 percent to 15,425 yuan ($2,257) a ton at 2:31 p.m. local time.
Source: Bloomberg