TOCOM posts fifth weekly loss amid demand worries

Benchmark Tokyo rubber futures on Friday posted a fifth-straight weekly loss after touching a 26-month low earlier in the week, amid consistent worries about slackened demand.

China’s automobile sales fell 11.7 percent in October from a year earlier, the country’s top auto industry association said on Friday, dragging year-to-date sales growth into negative territory for the first time.

The drop, the steepest since a 26.4 percent tumble at the start of 2012, also marked the fourth straight month of declining sales in the world’s largest auto market.

“The trade dispute between China and the United States may force a revision in supply chain of auto and other industries,” said a Japanese trading source.The Tokyo Commodity Exchange rubber contract for April delivery finished 1.6 yen higher at 161 yen ($1.41) per kg. For the week, it posted a 0.9 percent decline.

Inventories of ribbed smoked sheet (RSS) rubber at warehouses in and around Tokyo monitored by TOCOM rose by 331 tonnes to 10,068 tonnes as of Oct. 31, from Oct. 20, the exchange said on Friday.

TOCOM’s technically specified rubber (TSR) 20 futures contract for May delivery closed unchanged at 146.1 yen per kg.The most-active rubber contract on the Shanghai futures exchange for January delivery fell 20 yuan to finish at 11,300 yuan ($1,627) per tonne. It has recovered somewhat from Monday’s low of 11,015 yuan, which was the lowest intraday level since Aug. 3.

The front-month rubber contract on Singapore’s SICOM exchange for December delivery last traded at 124 U.S. cents per kg, down 0.4 cent, and trading not far from 121 yen hit on Oct. 31, which was the lowest since June 15, 2016. ($1 = 113.9100 yen) ($1 = 6.9458 Chinese yuan) (Reporting by Osamu Tsukimori; Editing by Rashmi Aich)