KUALA LUMPUR, April 8 (Bernama) — The Malaysian rubber market’s unofficial afternoon prices closed higher in quiet trading Monday, with players awaiting the outcome of the meeting in Phuket from Apr 10-12 between Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, to discuss an extension to the collective rubber export cut.
The market players are adopting a wait-and-see attitude, said a dealer.
On the local front, the Malaysian Rubber Board’s official physical prices at noon were lower with the tyre-grade SMR 20 slipping 20.5 sen to 766.5 sen a kg.
The latex-in-bulk price lost three sen to 592 sen a kg from 595 sen a kg previously.
However, the unofficial afternoon closing prices were higher with tyre-grade SMR 20 increasing 15.5 sen to 779.5 sen a kg, and latex-in-bulk adding two sen to 593.5 sen a kg.
The uptrend was in line with the higher prices on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange.
The price of RSS 3 on TOCOM (at 11am Malaysian time) was 256.30 yen per kg, up from 251.50 yen per kg last Friday.
The uptrend was also attributed to the softer yen to the US dollar on new aggressive easing measures from the Bank of Japan. But it was capped by the negative reaction towards disappointing US jobless claims data.
–BERNAMA
