Malaysian rubber market likely to stay quiet this week

The Malaysian rubber market is expected to stay quiet this week due to the slowdown in demand from China, the world's biggest rubber consumer, and high level of inventory, dealers said.

A dealer said the market tone was expected to remain quiet, if not turning softer, as supply of the commodity remained high in China while local inventory was also high.

“Our stock is too high despite declining output due to falling prices of the commodity as well as extremely erratic weather,” he said.

He added that rubber prices were likely to track the movement on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange and Shanghai Futures Exchange.

For the week just-ended, the rubber prices were mostly softer as concerns over the global economy as well as high level of inventory in China beleaguered the market.

On a Friday-to-Friday basis, the Malaysian Rubber Board's official physical price for tyre-grade SMR 20 dropped five sen to 715.5 sen per kg.

Latex-in-bulk fell 21.5 sen to 541 sen per kg.

The unofficial sellers' closing price for tyre-grade SMR 20 slipped one sen to 720 sen per kg and latex-in-bulk lost 19 sen to 541 sen per kg.