TOKYO, Nov 12 (Reuters) – Benchmark Tokyo rubber futures ended flat on Thursday as profit-taking kicked in late trade, wiping out earlier gains made on the back of strong auto sales in top buyer China. The Tokyo Commodity Exchange (TOCOM) rubber contract for April delivery JRUc6 0#2JRU: finished unchanged at 159.2 yen ($1.29) per kg. The TOCOM futures, which set the tone for tyre rubber prices in Southeast Asia, hit a two-week high in the previous session as investors looked for bargains following last week’s plunge to a six-year low.
“There was no sense of direction in the market today,” said Toshitaka Tazawa, an analyst with Fujitomi Co. “The prices got lifted by healthy auto sales in China, but the market gave up gains as some investors unwound long positions toward the end of the trade.” Motor vehicle sales in China rose 11.8 percent in October from a year earlier, an industry association said on Wednesday, boosted by Beijing’s move to stop the world’s biggest auto market from stalling by halving sales tax on smaller-engine cars.
“It seems the market is bottoming out at around 155 yen, but sell orders tend to kick in at around 160 yen.The TOCOM is likely to stay in a narrow trading range for a while,” Tazawa said.
The most-active rubber contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange for January delivery SNRcv1 rose 40 yuan to finish at 10,760 yuan ($1,689.78) per tonne. The front-month rubber contract on Singapore’s SICOM exchange for December delivery STFc1 last traded at 118.9 U.S.cents per kg, unchanged from the previous day.
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($1 = 122.9600 yen)
($1 = 6.3677 Chinese yuan)
(Reporting by Yuka Obayashi; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)
