Rubber futures steady

Rubber futures steady

SINGAPORE (Reuter): Singapore nearby TSR20 rubber futures were
quietly steady by the finish yesterday, helped by firm Indonesian
prices on weather factors, traders said.

But the RSS1 and RSS3 contracts were marked lower in line with
the Tokyo's trend, they said.

News that Saturday's earthquake in the Indonesian island of
Sumatra hardly moved the market after initial reports showed that
it damaged no ports or processing plants.

"The impact is hardly significant as no factories near Jambi
are affected," one Singapore trader said. Jambi, located near the
quake area, is a main rubber port.

Traders did not hear any fresh Indonesian deals today partly
due to the long weekend holiday in the United States. The Jambi
rubber is valued at 56.50 U.S. cents a pound and Palembang at 57.

But they said the prices could remain high in the coming days
due to soaring raw material prices following heavy rains.

"The raw material supply is very scarce," one Jambi trader
said. He said a kg of raw rubber is now priced at 2,600 rupiah.