TOKYO, March 28 (Reuters) – Key TOCOM rubber futures fell 1 percent on Thursday, hurt by rising rubber inventories and as the yen firmed on continued worries over Cyprus and a jump in Italy’s borrowing costs to five-month highs.
FUNDAMENTALS
* The benchmark Tokyo Commodity Exchange rubber contract for September delivery was trading down 1 percent at 279.9 yen per kg as of 0018 GMT.
* The TOCOM market touched a three-month low of 269.5 yen on March 18 after reaching 303.3 yen on March 11, the highest since Feb. 21.
* Crude rubber inventories at Japanese ports rose by 1,250 tonnes in the 10 days to March 10 to a nine-month high, industry data showed.
* In China, the world’s biggest consumer, latest weekly data showed rubber stocks jumped to their highest since 2010. (SNR-TOTAL-DW)
* The euro languished at four-month lows versus the dollar early in Asia on Thursday, having suffered a further setback as a rise in Italy’s funding costs weighed on markets already fretting about Cyprus’ rescue deal.
* Foreign investors are in talks with scores of Turkish auto parts makers after the government doubled tax breaks on investment in the sector in a bid to boost exports, a senior industry official said.
* A lithium-ion battery on a single Mitsubishi Motors Corp Outlander plug-in hybrid overheated last week, the Japanese carmaker said on Wednesday, as the technology faces scrutiny following failures on Boeing Co 787 Dreamliner jets.
MARKET NEWS
* The dollar traded at around 94.30 yen in early Asian trade on Thursday, near a three-week low below 94 yen marked earlier this week.
* Japan’s Nikkei share average opened down 0.3 percent on Thursday, hurt by the weakness in the euro.
* Crude oil prices climbed on Wednesday in choppy trading as U.S. heating oil rallied on falling distillate inventories, while rising crude oil stockpiles in the United States and the stronger dollar limited gains.
DATA EVENTS
* The following data is expected on Thursday: (Time in GMT)
0700 Germany Retail sales
0855 Germany Unemployment rate
0900 EZ M3 money supply
0900 Italy Business confidence
1230 U.S. Final Q4 GDP
1230 U.S. Weekly jobless claims
1345 U.S. Chicago PMI
(Reporting by Risa Maeda; Editing by Joseph Radford)
Source: Reuters
