BLBG:Rubber Futures in Tokyo May Decline as Falling Oil Price Reduces Appeal
Rubber, little changed, may decline for a third day, as concerns over the debt crisis and falling crude oil prices reduced the appeal of the commodity used in tires and gloves.
The January-delivery contract declined as much as 0.4 percent to 360.8 yen a kilogram ($4,712 a metric ton) before trading at 362.3 yen a kilogram on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange at 11:25 a.m. local time.
Asian stocks fell for the first time in four days as the yen rose toward a post-World War II high and two Federal Reserve officials said they opposed a pledge to keep U.S. interest rates at record lows. Oil dropped from a two-day high in New York as investors speculated that increasing crude stockpiles in the U.S. indicate weaker fuel demand in the world’s biggest consumer of the commodity.
“Rubber moves in tandem with negative oil prices,” Ker Chung Yang, an analyst at Phillip Futures Pte, said by phone from Singapore. The stronger Japanese currency also reduced the appeal of yen-denominated contracts, he said.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s pledge last week to keep rates near zero until mid-2013 was “inappropriate policy at an inappropriate time,” Charles Plosser, president of the Fed Bank of Philadelphia, said yesterday in a Bloomberg radio interview. Dallas President Richard Fisher said the central bank shouldn’t enact policy to protect stock investors. Both officials dissented from the Fed’s Aug. 9 statement.
Japan Exports
Japan’s exports fell more than expected in July as a global slowdown and a strengthening currency weigh on the outlook for the nation’s sales overseas. Exports decreased 3.3 percent in July from a year earlier, the Finance Ministry said today in Tokyo. The median estimate of 24 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News was for a 2.6 percent decline, after a 1.6 percent decrease in June.
The world’s third-largest economy is counting on an export revival to aid its rebound from the record earthquake in March. The yen’s 6 percent advance against the dollar in the past three months may weigh on overseas sales at a time when demand from major markets such as China and the U.S. is faltering. The yen traded at 76.54 per dollar. The currency’s postwar high is 76.25.
In Shanghai, rubber for January delivery dropped 0.6 percent to 33,910 yuan ($5,307) a ton on the Shanghai Futures Exchange. The cash price of Thai rubber remained unchanged at 139.30 baht ($4.66) a kilogram yesterday, according to the Rubber Research Institute of Thailand.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Richard Dobson at rdobson4@bloomberg.net
