KUALA LUMPUR — The Malaysian rubber market is expected to see bargain hunting in rubber futures trading next week following the recent drop in prices, dealers said. A dealer said concern over the shortage of supply due to the floods in Thailand, the world’s largest natural rubber producer, would also lift the price next week.
“The weakening of ringgit and supply disruption worries will increase demand,” he told Bernama. For the week just-ended, the local market started on a strong note and was traded only on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.
It was closed on Monday in lieu of the Chinese New Year on Sunday and on Wednesday for Federal Territory Day holiday.
Last week’s high trajectory was extended to Tuesday as continuous supply disruption concerns sparked worries in the market, sending the Standard Malaysian Rubber (SMR) 20, which is the benchmark for the tyre standard, to a new high of 1,059.5 sen mark during the noon session.
This was its highest level since 2012. The SMR 20’s highest price in 2012 was 1,139 sen a kg set on Jan 26, 2012, while the all-time high was just above the 1700 sen a kg level (February 2011).
However, the market retreated the next day on profit-taking and the downside continued on Friday.
On a Friday-to-Friday basis, the Malaysian Rubber Board’s official physical price for tyre-grade SMR 20 at noon fell 36.5 sen to 969 sen a kg, while latex-in-bulk gained 12 sen to 812.5 sen a kg.
The unofficial closing price for tyre-grade SMR 20 and latex-in-bulk ended the week at 994.5 sen a kg and 807.5 sen a kg respectively. The market was traded half-day on last Friday for CNY holiday.
