Rubber in Tokyo rebounded from a five-month low as the yen weakened against the dollar, boosting the appeal of futures denominated in the Japanese currency.
The contract for delivery in June on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange advanced as much as 2.2 percent to 258.4 yen a kilogram ($2,477 a metric ton) and traded at 255.8 yen at 11:39 a.m. Futures reached the lowest settlement since Aug. 7 yesterday.
The yen fell to 104.44 per dollar, retreating from a three-week high of 102.86 reached Jan. 13, after a report yesterday showed U.S. retail sales rose 0.2 percent in December, beating the 0.1 percent gain predicted by economists.
“The data added to confidence that the U.S. economy is recovering, weakening the yen and boosting futures in Tokyo,” said Takaki Shigemoto, an analyst at research company JSC Corp.
Futures for May delivery on the Shanghai Futures Exchange lost 0.6 percent to 16,645 yuan($2,754) a ton. The most-active contract recovered after reaching 16,235 yuan this week, the lowest intra-day level since July 2009, amid concern that the market is oversupplied.
Inventories monitored by the Shanghai exchange rose to 190,158 tons on Jan. 9, the highest level since 2004, data from the bourse shows. China is the world’s largest consumer of the commodity used in tires.
Rubber free-on-board fell 1.3 percent to 77.25 baht ($2.36) a kilogram yesterday, according to the Rubber Research Institute of Thailand.
Bloomberg
