Rubber declined almost to a six-week low after data showed manufacturing in China, the world’s largest consumer, fell more than economists forecast and as a slump in silver spurred selling of industrial commodities.
The October-delivery contract lost as much as 3.7 percent to 374.6 yen a kilogram ($4,615 a metric ton) before trading at 377.7 yen on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange at 11:40 a.m. Futures fell to a six-week low of 372.2 yen set in after-hours trade on April 27, and extended last week’s 7.1 percent drop.
The Purchasing Managers’ Index fell to 52.9 in April from 53.4 in March, China’s logistics federation and the statistics bureau said in an e-mail yesterday. That was below a median forecast of 53.9 in a Bloomberg News survey of 20 economists. The drop indicated that growth may moderate in the world’s second-biggest economy after the government raised interest ratesand allowed faster gains in the yuan.
“The data showing a slowdown in the Chinese economy raised concern that the nation’s raw material demand may weaken,” Kazuhiko Saito, an analyst at broker Fujitomi Co. in Tokyo, said today by phone.
Zhang Liqun, a senior researcher at the State Council’s Development Research Center, said in a statement yesterday that the data show an increased likelihood that growth will slow. China’s gross domestic product expanded 9.7 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier and theWorld Bank last week forecast a full-year expansion of 9.3 percent.
Premier Wen Jiabao’s government aims to counter the fastest inflation since 2008 and cool a real-estate market that has been at risk of price bubbles. Credit Suisse Group AG says the nation’s fifth increase in benchmark rates since the global financial crisis may come as early as today, a Chinese holiday, less than a month after the previous move.
Silver Plunges
Rubber was also sold as silver futures on the Comex in New York plunged as much as 13.2 percent, spurring investor sales of industrial raw materials, Saito said. The precious metal slumped as CME Group Inc., the Comex parent, increased the minimum amount of cash that traders must deposit for speculative trades.
Silver for July delivery dropped to $42.2 an ounce before trading at $44.735 an ounce at 10:46 a.m. Tokyo time. The CME increased the so-called initial margin by 13 percent to $14,513 per contract from $12,825 after the close of business on Friday. Margins were $4,250 a year ago.
Rubber also declined amid speculation that supply from Southeast Asian producers will expand, Saito said. Natural rubber output will increase in the coming weeks as farmers resume harvesting after the traditional low-production season, easing a “tightness” in global supplies, theAssociation of Natural Rubber Producing Countries said in a report last week.
Production from its member countries, representing 92 percent of global supply, may climb 10.5 percent to 2.3 million tons in the three months through June, the group said in a monthly bulletin. Output in the first quarter is estimated to have advanced 6.1 percent to 2.27 million tons, the group said.
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