TOKYO, April 11 (Reuters) – Benchmark Tokyo rubber futuresposted their fourth straight week of losses on Friday amidworries over slowing demand in top buyer China.
The benchmark rubber contract on the Tokyo CommodityExchange (TOCOM) for September delivery fell 2 yen, or0.9 percent, to settle at 213.7 yen ($2.11) per kg.
The contract finished the week down 4.2 percent, with thedeclines over the past four weeks totalling 11 percent.
Japanese shares tumbled to six-month lows on Friday andposted their biggest weekly fall since the March 2011 tsunamiand nuclear disaster after a rout in U.S. tech shares spurredselling by momentum players.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang ruled out major stimulus to fightshort-term dips in growth, even as big falls in imports andexports data on Thursday reinforced forecasts that the world’ssecond-largest economy has slowed notably at the start of 2014.
“Volumes remain low. The supply/demand balance is not thatstrong, and we’re seeing increases in inventories, resulting inoversupply,” said Kaname Gokon, general manager of research atbroker Okato Shoji.
The most-active rubber contract on the Shanghai futuresexchange for September delivery fell 190 yuan to finishat 15,010 yuan ($2,400) per tonne.
The front-month rubber contract on Singapore’s SICOMexchange for May delivery last traded at 177.50 U.S.cents per kg, down 2.9 cents.
($1 = 101.5200 Japanese yen)
($1 = 6.2125 Chinese yuan)
(Reporting by Osamu Tsukimori; Editing by Sunil Nair)
– Reuters
